"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
"Man alone knows that he must die; but that very knowledge raises him, in a sense, above mortality, by making him a sharer in the vision of eternal truth. He becomes the spectator of his own tragedy; he sympathizes so much with the fury of the storm that he has no ears left for the shipwrecked sailor, though the sailor were his own soul. The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it."
5 likes
Source: 'Little Essays' (1920) 'Ideal Immortality'
About the author
Same author
More quotes by George Santayana
"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring."
"Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men."
"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."
"The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate; they are green and vigorous in old age."
"Each religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny."