It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People accept what they can handle and dismiss what they cannot.
This quote by George Santayana suggests that individuals are willing to embrace experiences and realities that they feel equipped to deal with, while they tend to overlook or reject those that seem beyond their capacity to understand or manage. It highlights the limitation of human perception and the various ways we confront or evade challenging truths in life.
Themes
AcceptancePerceptionRealityExperienceHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of facing challenges.
More from George Santayana
All quotes βThe 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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Fear is proof of a degenerate mind.
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As nonhuman animals, plants, and even 'inanimate' rivers once spoke to our oral ancestors, so the ostensibly βinertβ letters on the page now speak to us! This is a form of animism that we take for granted, but it is animism nonetheless - as mysterious as a talking stone.
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