What brings enlightenment is experience, in the sad sense of this word--the pressure of hard facts and unintelligible troubles, making a man rub his eyes in his waking dream, and put two and two together. Enlightenment is cold water.
George SantayanaPeriods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
George SantayanaTo be boosted by an illusion is not to live better than to live in harmony with the truth ... these refusals to part with a decayed illusion are really an infection to the mind.
George SantayanaThe mediocrity of everything in the great world of today is simply appalling. We live in intellectual slums.
George Santayana