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 5, 2025
00:40
[On being prime minister] Sometimes the strain is awful, you have to resort to Jane Austen.
January 24, 2025
Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
November 19, 2025
Believe nothing until it has been officially denied.
Page 79 of 123