It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Unto the thinking of the thought divine.
Interpretation
Faith guides the heart towards understanding deeper truths about existence.
In this quote, George Santayana suggests that faith acts as a gentle illumination, helping individuals navigate the complexities of life and leading them to contemplate higher, divine thoughts. It highlights the significance of faith in understanding profound truths and connecting with something greater than oneself.
In practice
In a motivational speech about following one's dreams when doubt arises.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.
All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle
A state arises,as I conceive,out of the needs of mankind;no one is self-sufficing,but all of us have many wants
Our desire to conform is greater than our respect for objective facts.
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention; it is only the application of them that is human.
...The hagaddah came to Sarajevo for a reason. It was here to test us, to see if there were people who could see that what united us was more than what divided us. That to be a human being matters more than to be a Jew or a Muslim, Catholic or Orthodox. p. 361
One of the reasons why fundamentalists are so aggressive in trying to promote fundamentalism is because deep down they know it's arbitrary. If you're comfortable with your belief you don't need to convince other people to agree with you.
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