It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
Sanity is madness put to good use.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Sanity can be viewed as a form of creativity or effective madness that is harnessed for practical purposes.
This quote by George Santayana suggests that what we often consider to be 'sanity' is, in fact, a form of madness that has been tailored or controlled for productive use. It highlights the idea that the line between rationality and irrationality is thin and that true creativity often stems from unconventional thinking and behavior that society labels as madness.
Themes
SanityMadnessCreativityWisdomControl
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about creativity in the workplace.
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.
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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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