"What renders man an imaginative and moral being is that in society he gives new aims to his life which could not have existed in solitude: the aims of friendship, religion, science, and art."

George Santayana Literature See all quotes by George Santayana →

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“Eternal vigilance is the price of knowledge.”

“American life is a powerful solvent. As it stamps the immigrant, almost before he can speak English, with an unmistakable muscular tension, cheery self-confidence and habitual challenge in the voice and eyes, so it seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good-will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.”

“The soul, too, has her virginity and must bleed a little before bearing fruit.”

“It is not society's fault that most men seem to miss their vocation. Most men have no vocation.”

“Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.”

“Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.”

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Science1941

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Philosophy1915–1973

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"Confronted, when the weather is fine and I am in propitious emotional circumstances, with certain landscapes, certain works of art, certain human beings, I know, for the time being, that God's in his …"

— Aldous Huxley

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"And on the basis of criteria of this kind tribals were hacked off from Hindu society. One has but to read the descriptions of Animism which were relied upon to notice that they could well be describin…"

— Arun Shourie

Politics1941

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