Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on the Foolishness of the Simple and the Wise)

“The foolishness of the simple is delightful; only the foolishness of the wise is exasperating.”— Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist, and poet George Santayana (1863-1952) “Masks,” in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on Hatred)

“A man’s hatred of his own condition no more helps to improve it than hatred of other people tends to improve them.” —Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist and poet George Santayana (1863-1952), Reason in Common Sense (Vol. 1 of “The Life of Reason”) (1905)

Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on Character)

“Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.”—Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist and poet George Santayana (1863-1952), Reason in Common Sense (Vol. 1 of “The Life of Reason”) (1905)

Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on ‘The End of War’)

“Only the dead have seen the end of war."— Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist, and poet George Santayana (1863-1952), “Tipperary,” in Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

The image accompanying this post is the Southwestern Pennsylvania World War II Veterans Memorial, which I visited while in Pittsburgh in June 2019.

Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on ‘The Tender Light of Faith’)

“Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine

That lights the pathway but one step ahead

Across a void of mystery and dread.

Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine

By which alone the mortal heart is led

Unto the thinking of the thought divine.”— Philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist George Santayana (1863-1952), “Poems: I,” in The Philosophy of Santayana: Selections From All the Works, edited by Irwin Edman (1953)

Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on Confession)

“Serious poetry, profound religion (Calvinism, for instance) are the joys of an unhappiness that confesses itself; but when a genteel tradition forbids people to confess that they are unhappy, serious poetry and profound religion are closed to them by that; and since human life, in its depths, cannot then express itself openly, imagination is driven for comfort into abstract arts, where human circumstances are lost sight of, and human problems dissolve in a purer medium.”—George Santayana, “The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy” (1911), reprinted in The Genteel Tradition: Nine Essays, edited by Douglas L. Wilson (1998)

Quote of the Day (George Santayana, on Friendship)

“One’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.”—Attributed to philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952)