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George Santayana
(1863 - 1952)
Spanish-American philosopher.
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Science Quotes by George Santayana (4 quotes)
Sanity is a madness put to good uses.
— George Santayana
Interpretations of Poetry and Religion (1900, 1921), 261.
The scientific value of truth is not, however, ultimate or absolute. It rests partly on practical, partly on aesthetic interests. As our ideas are gradually brought into conformity with the facts by the painful process of selection,�for intuition runs equally into truth and into error, and can settle nothing if not controlled by experience,�we gain vastly in our command over our environment. This is the fundamental value of natural science
— George Santayana
In The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory (1896), 22.
Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.
— George Santayana
In The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory (1896), 125.
To most people, I fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation of those orbs. ... [We] persuade ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of astronomical facts.
— George Santayana
In The Sense of Beauty: Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory (1896), 100-101.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
