There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the
interval.

George Santayana is widely regarded to be one of America's greatest philosophers, even though he was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1863. He emmigrated to America in 1872, to Massachusetts where he remained for forty years before returning to Europe, yet he always maintained his Spanish citizenship and never became an American citizen. During his lifetime he was also to be known as a poet, a novelist and a literary critic.

After graduating from Harvard in 1886, Santayana returned to the school in 1889 and joined the philosophy department. He taught until 1912 when an inheritance made it possible for him to travel; he lived in England and France before settling in Italy, never to return to the United States again. Criticised for not leaving Italy prior to the outbreak of World War II, he spent the remainder of his life in a convent of English nuns until his death in September 1952.

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.

Santayana was considered somewhat ahead of his time in his philosophies, promoting ideas like naturalism or multiculturalism decades before they occupied popular thought. His ideas were largely shaped by his Hispanic heritage and his feelings of being an outsider in America despite his many years spent there. He felt that all ideals have a basis in nature, and that many 'rational beliefs' held by humans are the result of 'animal faith'; a compulsion and need to believe certain things. It is also from this idea of 'animal faith' that he developed thoughts on skepticism and need to cast doubt on some things that humans are compelled to believe.

History played an important part in Santayana's ideas as well; The Life of Reason described his take on the role that reason plays in activities of the human spirit based in the philosophy of history. In the same volume he gave birth to the timeless truism and threat of many a history teacher since, 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'

Another philosophy is the distinction between the existence and essence of being. Santayana felt that existence is more to do with materialism while essence is something of a driving force, the idea of how we experience situations and why we do the things we do. He also held that the human spirit was enriched by thought, but that thought did not constitute reality, just ideas of reality.

Sanity is a madness put to good use.