Memorable Quotations: George Santayana

Born in Spain, George Santayana (1863–1952) was an American philosopher. He relocated to the United States in 1872, graduated from Harvard University, and was (1889–1912) a distinguished professor there. In 1912 he retired from teaching and subsequently resided in Europe. Santayana regarded the mind as being placed in and responsive to a physical, biological context; at the same time he stressed the mind's reasonable and imaginative vision of physical beauty. He deemed religion an inventive creation of real value but without conclusive importance. His philosophical works include The Sense of Beauty (1896), The Life of Reason (1905–6), The Realms of Being (4 vol., 1927–40), and Dominations and Powers (1951). His single novel, The Last Puritan (1935), had critical success.