It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.
Interpretation
Human irrationality can lead to repulsive and frightening behaviors.
This quote by George Santayana reflects on the darker aspects of human nature, highlighting that irrationality can manifest in ways that are disturbing and grotesque, as illustrated by examples such as addiction and madness. It suggests that when individuals act without reason or control, they can exhibit behaviors that are not only troubling but also evoke fear or disgust in others.
In practice
In a discussion about mental health, one could reference this quote to illustrate the consequences of irrational behavior.
It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.
There will never be a perfectly good or bad world, because the very idea is a contradiction in terms.
The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community.
Life is more important than architecture.
I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in 'the High Countries'.
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