QuoteProject
Emotion is primarily about nothing and much of it remains about nothing to the end.
George Santayana
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Emotion is often linked to nothing tangible, yet it holds great significance in our lives.

George Santayana's quote suggests that emotions, while they may seem to arise from nothing concrete, play a vital role in our human experience. He emphasizes that much of what we feel may not have clear reasons or significance, yet these emotions are essential to understanding ourselves and navigating life.

Themes

EmotionPhilosophyFeelingsHuman ExperienceSelf-Discovery

In practice

Example use cases

During a discussion on mental health, you could use this quote to illustrate the complex nature of emotions.

More from George Santayana

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
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.
George SantayanaRead
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.
George SantayanaRead
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.
George SantayanaRead
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.
George SantayanaRead
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.
George SantayanaRead

Similar quotes

Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.
Richard RogersRead
I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout
Harper LeeRead
For the real difference between humans and other animals is that humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust, etc. It is the sharing of a common view in these matters that makes a household and a state.
AristotleRead
It is a curious thing... that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste.
Evelyn WaughRead
The property a man has in his own industry, is violated, whenever he is forbidden the free exercise of his faculties or talents, except insomuch as they would interfere with the rights of third parties.
Jean-Baptiste SayRead
I don't see people. I don't see men and women at all. When I see them, I see... their mothers and fathers. I see how old they are inside. Like when I look at the president, or anybody in a record company, or a store owner, I may see a little boy behind the counter with the face of an old man. And that's who I talk to.
Jeff BuckleyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.