QuoteProject
A grateful environment is a substitute for happiness. It can quicken us from without as a fixed hope and affection, or as the consciousness of a right life, can quicken us from within.
George Santayana
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Gratitude can enhance our sense of happiness both externally and internally.

This quote by George Santayana suggests that a grateful environment plays a crucial role in our happiness. It posits that external circumstances, filled with appreciation and gratitude, can uplift our spirits, while internal feelings of hope and living rightly can also enhance our well-being. Thus, both external and internal gratitude are vital for achieving true happiness.

Themes

GratitudeHappinessEnvironmentHopeAffectionLife

In practice

Example use cases

Speaking at a wellness seminar about the importance of gratitude in daily life.

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

It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
Viktor E. FranklRead
I think everyone should go to bed like they have a date at the door.
Karl LagerfeldRead
It doesn't all have to be about giving money. Sometimes it's a smile that changes the life of one little kid.
Masai UjiriRead
Living in a state of gratitude is the gateway to grace.
Arianna HuffingtonRead
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.
Victor HugoRead
Most people are searching for happiness. They're looking for it. They're trying to find it in someone or something outside of themselves. That's a fundamental mistake. Happiness is something that you are, and it comes from the way you think.
Wayne DyerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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