George Santayana

Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them. ”

Music is essentially useless, as is life. ”

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament. ”

Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others. ”

The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. ”

The existence of any evil anywhere at any time absolutely ruins a total optimism. ”

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible. ”

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment. ”

The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal. ”

Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace. ”