Quotes Library

February 12, 2025

Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go well together.

George Santayana, 1863-1952, Spanish-born American philosopher, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.171

What is the point? For you personally, not for the rest of the universe?

If Santayana believed all that, it surprises me that he managed so long a life—replete with the absurd, the futile, and the transitory. And that he is remembered.


More Quotes

August 28, 2025
Acquire a good reputation, then go to sleep.
January 24, 2025
Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
March 14, 2025
[Of political life] The hatreds which sound so real when you read the words, which look so true when you see their scornful attitudes
Page 103 of 123