The arts must study their occasions; they must stand modestly aside until they can slip in fitly into the interstices of life.
George SantayanaOne of the peculiarities of recent speculation, especially in America, is that ideas are abandoned in virtue of a mere change of feeling, without any new evidence or new arguments. We do not nowadays refute our predecessors, we pleasantly bid them good-bye.
George SantayanaMusic is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world.
George SantayanaMen have feverishly conceived a heaven only to find it insipid, and a hell to find it ridiculous.
George SantayanaHe thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.
George SantayanaThe family is an early expedient and in many ways irrational. If the race had developed a special sexless class to be nurses, pedagogues, and slaves, like the workers among ants and bees, then the family would have been unnecessary. Such a division of labor would doubtless have involved evils of its own, but it would have obviated some drags and vexations proper to the family.
George Santayana