George Santayana (1863-1952)
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American, although he always kept a valid Spanish passport.[1] He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters. At the age of forty-eight, Santayana left his position at Harvard and returned to Europe permanently, never to return to the United States. His last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon of the Cimitero Monumentale del Verano in Rome.
Santayana is known for famous sayings, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it",[2] and "[O]nly the dead have seen the end of war." (a quote often wrongly attributed to Plato).[3] Santayana is broadly included among the pragmatists with Harvard University colleagues William James and Josiah Royce. He said that he stood in philosophy "exactly where [he stood] in daily life."[4]
Quotes·Quotations by George Santayana
Appearance
¶ Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.
Music
¶ Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.
Spring
¶ To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
References
[1]^ George Santayana, "Apologia Pro Mente Sua," in P. A. Schilpp, The Philosophy of George Santayana, (1940), 603.
[2]^ George Santayana (1905) Reason in Common Sense, volume 1 of The Life of Reason
[3]^ George Santayana (1922) Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, number 25
[4]^ Santayana, George (March 5, 2009), The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings (Paperback) (1st ed.), Bloomington, Indiana, United States: Indiana University Press, p. xxv, ISBN 0-253-22105-6 Unknown parameter |editorn-first= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editorn-last= ignored (help)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana