George Santayana 1863 – 1952
George Santayana (1863 – 1952) was a Spanish-American philosopher of the Contemporary era, associated with Pragmatism.
George Santayana was a Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Educated at Harvard alongside William James and Josiah Royce, he taught there for more than two decades before retiring at fifty to live and write in Europe. His five-volume Life of Reason offered a naturalistic account of human achievement in society, religion, art, and science, while The Sense of Beauty was the first systematic American treatise on aesthetics. His later Realms of Being developed an austere ontology of essence, matter, truth, and spirit. He died in Rome at eighty-eight, never having taken American citizenship.
George Santayana (1863–1952) was a Spanish-American philosopher whose work straddles the analytic-continental divide and whose elegant philosophical prose places him among the most-read American philosophers of the early twentieth century. Born in Madrid as Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, he was raised in Boston, educated at Harvard where he studied with William James and Josiah Royce, and taught at Harvard from 1889 until 1912.
Santayana's first major book, The Sense of Beauty (1896), was a foundational document of American aesthetics. The five-volume The Life of Reason (1905–1906) developed a comprehensive naturalist philosophy organized around the cultivation of reason in society, religion, art, and science. His mature ontology — the four-volume Realms of Being (1927–1940) — distinguished essence, matter, truth, and spirit as the four aspects of reality.
Santayana retired from Harvard in 1912 with an inheritance and never held another academic position, living first in Oxford during World War I and then in Rome until his death in 1952. The Last Puritan (1936) — his single novel — was a Book of the Month Club selection. Persons and Places, the autobiographical trilogy of his late years, gives one of the most-read accounts of late-nineteenth-century Harvard and turn-of-the-century Anglophone philosophy. He is the source of the famous line — those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it — that has been variously misquoted and misattributed for a century.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Spanish-American
- Era
- Contemporary
- Movements
- Pragmatism
Selected quotes
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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
This famous statement has produced many paraphrases and variants: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them. Those who do not know history's mistakes are doo -
“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”
War Shrines -
“Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.”
George Santayana , as quoted in Quotations for Our Time (1977) edited by Laurence J. Peter -
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”
The Life of Reason, Volume I -
Attributed to George Santayana:
“The earth has its music for those who will listen.”
George Santayana by topic
Frequently asked about George Santayana
- When did George Santayana live?
- George Santayana was born in 1863 and died in 1952.
- Where was George Santayana from?
- George Santayana was a Spanish-American philosopher of the Contemporary era.
- What philosophical movements is George Santayana associated with?
- George Santayana was associated with Pragmatism.
- What was George Santayana known for?
- George Santayana was a Spanish-born American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist.
- How many quotes are attributed to George Santayana?
- There are 17 attributed quotations from George Santayana in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from George Santayana
These lines are widely circulated as George Santayana, but they do not appear in George Santayana's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
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“The earth has music for those who listen.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This statement is commonly associated with Santayana, but no source or attribution can be found in his works or correspondence. This quotation is appropriately attributed to Reginald Vincent Holmes' poem "The Magic of Sound", published in Fireside Fancies (1955, Edwards Brothers Inc.), part of the v
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“The working of great administrations is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self-interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Giorgio de Santillana (1902-1974) The Crime of Galileo (1958) | Many sources mistakenly attribute this quote to Santayana, and one even identifies the correct book, without realizing that George Santayana and Giorgio de Santillana are two different people
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“Books are “imaginative rehearsals for living,” stated novelist George Santayana. They are also a great equalizer in a diverse society. Book reading helps prepare a child for mental liberation from ignorance, fear, and falsehood.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: The lockdown’s lesson in reading books aloud, Christian Science Monitor (22 June 2020)
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“The writer-philosopher George Santayana is credited with the phrase: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Yet here we are, repeating that of just 52 years ago. Let us pray that come 2072, Americans then have at last heeded Santayana's warning and Dr. King’s dream is no longer words in a speech but reality being lived.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Geoff Caldwell: How long will history have to repeat before we learn?, The Joplin Globe (Jun 21, 2020)
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“Geoff Caldwell: How long will history have to repeat before we learn?, The Joplin Globe (Jun 21, 2020)”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: The writer-philosopher George Santayana is credited with the phrase: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Yet here we are, repeating that of just 52 years ago. Let us pray that come 2072, Americans then have at last heeded Santayana's warning and Dr. King’s dream is no lo
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“I revelled in the keen analysis of William James , Josiah Royce and young George Santayana.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois : A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century (1968)
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“But what a perfection of rottenness in a philosophy!”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: William James , of Santayana's The Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900), in a letter to George H. Palmer (1900), as quoted in George Santayana : A Biography (2003) by John McCormick
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“In America literary reputations come and go so swiftly," I complained, fatuously. [Santayana's] answer was swift. "It would be insufferable if they did not .”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Gore Vidal , in Palimpsest, A Memoir (1995)
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“There is no God , and Mary is his mother." Often, almost certainly incorrectly, attributed to Santayana himself. More plausibly attributed to Robert Lowell, as a sardonic description of Santayana's philosophy.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Paul Mariani, "Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell" (1994), p. 159
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“Paul Mariani, "Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell" (1994), p. 159”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: There is no God , and Mary is his mother." Often, almost certainly incorrectly, attributed to Santayana himself. More plausibly attributed to Robert Lowell, as a sardonic description of Santayana's philosophy.
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“Santayana, indeed, is the Moses of the new naturalism , who discerned the promised land from afar but still wanders himself in the desert realms of being.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: John Herman Randall , "The Nature of Naturalism", epilogue to Naturalism and the Human Spirit (1944)
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“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Santayana wrote in The Life of Reason (1905): 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' The popular reformulation as 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it' compresses and slightly alters Santayana's wording. The line is also frequently misattributed to Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, neither of whom wrote it.
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“Religions are not true or false, but better or worse.”
This statement is presented in quotes in The Philosophy of Religion and Advaita Vedanta (2008) by Arvind Sharma, p. 216, as a "Santayanan point", but earlier publications by the same author, such as in A Primal Perspective on the Philosophy of Religion (2006), p. 161, state it to be a stance of Santayana without actually indicating or in any ways implying that it is a direct quotation. (Disputed.)