It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Fashion often leads to unnecessary changes and trends that serve little purpose.
In this quote, George Santayana critiques the nature of fashion, suggesting that it is marked by a lack of reason and true benefit. He implies that while fashion drives innovation, it can often lead to trends that are shallow and merely serve to imitate without providing any real value or substance. This highlights the often superficial and transient nature of fashion in society.
Themes
FashionInnovationImitationArtCritique
In practice
Example use cases
During a fashion lecture, one could use this quote to discuss the implications of trends.
More from George Santayana
All quotes βThe working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.
George SantayanaRead
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colours of life in all their purity.
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Not to believe in love is a great sign of dullness. There are some people so indirect and lumbering that they think all real affection rests on circumstantial evidence.
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To feel beauty is a better thing than to understand how we come to feel it. To have imagination and taste, to love the best, to be carried by the contemplation of nature to a vivid faith in the ideal, all this is more, a great deal more, than any science can hope to be.
George SantayanaRead
The vital straining towards an ideal, definite but latent, when it dominates a whole life, may express that ideal more fully than could the best chosen words.
George SantayanaRead
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