It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
If you prefer illusions to realities, it is only because all decent realities have eluded you and left you in the lurch; or else your contempt for the world is mere hypocrisy and funk.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Choosing illusions over reality stems from a failure to confront true experiences or is simply a form of hypocrisy.
This quote by George Santayana suggests that individuals who cling to illusions do so because they have been let down by reality, leaving them feeling abandoned. Alternatively, it critiques those who dismiss the world without honest reflection, labeling their disdain as a cover for deeper insecurities.
Themes
IllusionRealityHypocrisyContemptPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about escapism in literature, this quote can illustrate the dangers of avoiding reality.
More from George Santayana
All quotes →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
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Freeing oneself from words is liberation.
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