Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.
 George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (1896). copy citation

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Author George Santayana
Source The Sense of Beauty
Topic sacrifice good
Date 1896
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26842/26842-h/26842-h.htm

Context

“But when these moral forces were suggesting and partly realizing the democratic idea, this idea was necessarily vividly present to men's thoughts; the picture of human life which it presented was becoming familiar, and was being made the sanction and goal of constant endeavour. Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it. The consequence was that democracy, prized at first as a means to happiness and as an instrument of good government, was acquiring an intrinsic value; it was beginning to seem good in itself, in fact, the only intrinsically right and perfect arrangement.” source