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

May 25, 2025
When I was a boy I was told that anyone could become President.
January 27, 2025
[On hearing Lady Mountbatten’s anti-monarchical views] How easy it seems for a semi-royal millionnairess, who has exhausted all the pleasures of money and position, to turn almost Communist!
January 19, 2025
A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.
Page 96 of 122