It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.
Interpretation
People seek validation for their beliefs, much like they do in religious faith, and resist opposing views strongly.
George Santayana's quote highlights the human tendency to desire affirmation and support for our personal beliefs and vanity. Just as individuals often anticipate unwavering support and agreement in matters of faith, they similarly expect the same in areas of personal pride, and are often unwilling to accept or forgive any contradictions or challenges to those beliefs.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of self-esteem, one might use this quote to highlight how people react to differing opinions.
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.
I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, βGod in the form of the saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.
America is a willingness of the heart.
Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.
See, ma'am, frankly speaking this problem can't be solved by us police or military. The problem with these tribals is they don't understand greed. Unless they become greedy there's no hope for us. I have told my boss, remove the force and instead put a TV in every home. Everything will be automatically sorted out.
Our job as humans is to make admiration of others and adoration of God fully conscious and deliberate.
The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly.
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