6 George Santayana Quotes on Culture

George Santayana quotes on culture

3. American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.

4. All his life he [the American] jumps into the train after it has started and jumps out before it has stopped; and he never once gets left behind, or breaks a leg.

24. Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.

31. England is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies, and humors.

44. A man's feet must be planted in his country but his eyes must survey the world.

68. 'In America literary reputations come and go so swiftly,' I complained, fatuously. [Santayana's] answer was swift. 'It would be insufferable if they did not.'