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

February 14, 2025
Whatever else may be shaken, there are some facts established beyond warring; for virtue is better than vice
September 1, 2025
Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.
January 16, 2025
[On Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom] A plan to resist all planning may be better than its opposite, but it belongs to the same style of politics.
Page 14 of 123