In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality....The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.
George SantayanaTo fight is a radical instinct; if men have nothing else to fight over they will fight over words, fancies, or women, or they will fight because they dislike each other's looks, or because they have met walking in opposite directions.
George SantayanaFriends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy.
George SantayanaThe dreamer can know no truth, not even about his dream, except by awaking out of it.
George SantayanaThe brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.
George SantayanaIt would be hard to conceive a system of instincts more nicely adjusted, where the constituents should represent or support one another better. The husband has an interest in protecting the wife, she in serving the husband. The weaker gains in authority and safety, the wilder and more unconcerned finds a help-mate at home to take thought of his daily necessities. Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.
George Santayana