It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit of an ideal can deeply influence a person's life, often conveying that ideal more powerfully than words can.
This quote by George Santayana suggests that striving for an ideal, even if it remains unexpressed in words, can profoundly shape oneβs existence and actions. The notion highlights that the essence of our aspirations and principles can manifest through our way of living and being, possibly conveying deeper truths than spoken language ever could.
Themes
IdealLifeAspirationExpressionPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a graduation speech to inspire students to follow their ideals.
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
All living souls welcome whatsoever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
George SantayanaRead
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A simple man with Scripture has more authority than the Pope or a council.
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To the socialist no nation is free whose national existence is based upon the enslavement of another people, for to him colonial peoples, too, are peoples, and, as such, parts of the national state.
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