“ Chance feeling needs to fortify itself with reasons and to find its level in the great world. When it has added fitness to its sincerity, beneficence to its passion, it will have acquired a right to live. ”
George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905). copy citation
| Author | George Santayana |
|---|---|
| Source | The Life of Reason |
| Topic | sincerity passion |
| Date | 1905 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15000/15000-h/15000-h.htm |
Context
“Mere taste is apt to be bad taste, since it regards nothing but a chance feeling. Every man who pursues an art may be presumed to have some sensibility; the question is whether he has breeding, too, and whether what he stops at is not, in the end, vulgar and offensive. Chance feeling needs to fortify itself with reasons and to find its level in the great world. When it has added fitness to its sincerity, beneficence to its passion, it will have acquired a right to live. Violence and self-justification will not pass muster in a moral society, for vipers possess both, and must nevertheless be stamped out. Citizenship is conferred only on creatures with human and co-operative instincts.”
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