It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
Whoever it was who searched the heavens with a telescope and found no God would not have found the human mind if he had searched the brain with a microscope.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the pursuit of understanding both the universe and the human mind requires more than just physical tools; it involves deeper insight and perspective.
George Santayana implies that simply relying on scientific tools like telescopes and microscopes to understand existence is inadequate. The search for God among the stars or the depths of human thought cannot be fully attained through mere empirical observation, as both realms require philosophical and introspective contemplation that transcends the limitations of scientific inquiry.
In practice
In a discussion about the limits of science in understanding existence.
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.
Though builders may build, in the main they follow the plans of architects. Teachers teach, but they must have a text. Politicians govern, but only upon the flow of commentary that raises them up or casts them down.
We ought not to endeavor to revise history according to our latter day notions of what things ought to have been, or upon the theory that the past is simply a reflection of the present
Generalized intelligence and mental alertness are the most powerful enemies of dictatorship and at the same time the basic conditions of effective democracy.
Deserts possess a particular magic, since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time. Anything erected there, a city, a pyramid, a motel, stands outside time. It's no coincidence that religious leaders emerge from the desert. Modern shopping malls have much the same function. A future Rimbaud, Van Gogh or Adolf Hitler will emerge from their timeless wastes.
Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction.
The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
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