It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George SantayanaRead
As widowers proverbially marry again, so a man with the habit of friendship always finds new friends.
Interpretation
Friendship is a recurring theme in life, as those who value it naturally attract new friends over time.
This quote by George Santayana suggests that just as widowers often remarry, individuals who actively nurture the habit of friendship will continuously find new companions. It highlights the importance of maintaining an open heart and engaging socially, indicating that friendships evolve and grow, similar to romantic relationships, and that a mindset oriented towards connection invites further relationships.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of community, one might quote this to emphasize how friendships can help build connections.
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.
Social media has given us this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are lucky.
Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that your should seek with him hours to kill? Seek with him always hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter, and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling?
Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesnβt return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different.
As for rosemary, I let it run all over my garden walls, not only because my bees love it but because it is the herb sacred to remembrance and to friendship, whence a sprig of it hath a dumb language.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.