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Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continual comforting assurances from the same social consensus that originally suggested them.

— George Santayana The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905)

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More quotes by George Santayana

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905)

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905)

To covet truth is a very distinguished passion.

The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy (1911)

Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.

The Sense of Beauty (1896)

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George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

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Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: George Santayana (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.