It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The word 'is' connects concepts but may obscure their true differences, leading to both beauty and peril.
In this quote, George Santayana reflects on the simplicity and complexity inherent in the word 'is'. It serves as a connector that marries different concepts or identities, suggesting unity. However, the beauty of this connection is tempered by the reality that no two entities are truly identical, and this oversimplification can lead to misunderstandings and dangers in perception.
Themes
LanguageIdentityPerceptionPhilosophyConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the power of language, you might quote Santayana to illustrate how words shape our understanding.
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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