The living have never shown me how to live.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The author feels that observing how people currently live offers no useful guide for living well.
- In plain terms
- Watching how others live does not teach me how to live my own life.
- What can you take from it?
- Do not rely on societal norms to guide your personal choices.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Who sets the example for how to live?
- Can you learn from the world without copying it?
Another view
It ignores that many people do learn effectively from observing others.
More from George Santayana
Profound skepticism is favorable to conventions, because it doubts that the criticism of conventions is any truer than they are.
Permalink to quote #38 My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human in…
Permalink to quote #36 All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
Permalink to quote #39
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