It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
Men almost universally have acknowledged providence, but that fact has had no force to destroy natural aversions and fears in the presence of events.
Interpretation
The acknowledgment of a higher power doesn't change human instincts and fears.
George Santayana's quote reflects the idea that although humanity has a general belief in divine providence or a higher power controlling events, this belief does not alleviate the natural fears and aversions that individuals feel in the face of uncertain or adverse situations. It highlights the tension between faith and human psychology, suggesting that belief systems may not fully conquer our innate emotional responses.
In practice
In a discussion about the challenges of faith during difficult times.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
Faith is not opposed to reason, but it is sometimes opposed to feelings and appearances.
In every adult there lurks a childβ an eternal child, something that is always becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention, and education. That is the part of the personality which wants to develop and become whole.
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
p.61 He [Roark] was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he went. His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. He was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his presence had a strange quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not there; or perhaps that he was and they weren't.
If the government is to try and ban private consumption of alcohol and tobacco, it must surely ban such activities as hang-gliding, skiing, rock-climbing and so on. Where should it stop? Rugby? American Football? Ice Hockey? _x000D_ Insofar as the government has information not generally available about the merits or demerits of the items we ingest or the activities we engage in, let it give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives.
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