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

March 18, 2025
It’s 90 per cent of the politicians who give the other 10 per cent a bad name.
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.
June 12, 2025
The people as a body cannot deliberate. Nevertheless, they will feel an irresistible impulse to act
Page 55 of 63