Defunct Newspapers Journals TV channels Websites Other Congressional caucuses Economics Gun rights Identity politics Nativist Religion Watchdog groups Youth/student groups Miscellaneous Other Defunct George Santayana (b. Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist.

[2] Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States from the age of eight and identified as an American, yet always retained a valid Spanish passport.

[3] At the age of 48, he left his academic position at Harvard University and permanently returned to Europe; his last will was to be buried in the Spanish Pantheon in the Campo di Verano, Rome.

As a philosopher, Santayana is known for aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it",[4] and "Only the dead have seen the end of war",[5] and his definition of beauty as "Pleasure objectified".

George Santayana was born on December 16, 1863, in Calle de San Bernardo of Madrid and spent his early childhood in Ávila, Spain.

Santayana attended Boston Latin School and Harvard College, where he studied under the philosophers William James and Josiah Royce and was involved in eleven clubs.

[10] In December, 1885, he played the role of Lady Elfrida in the Hasty Pudding theatrical Robin Hood, followed by the production Papillonetta in the spring of his senior year.

In turn, he financially assisted a number of writers, including Bertrand Russell, with whom he was in fundamental disagreement, philosophically and politically.

He wrote books and essays on a wide range of subjects, including philosophy of a less technical sort, literary criticism, the history of ideas, politics, human nature, morals, the influence of religion on culture and social psychology, all with considerable wit and humour.

Like Alexis de Tocqueville, Santayana observed American culture and character from a foreigner's point of view.

In 1941, he entered a hospital and convent run by the Little Company of Mary (also known as the Blue Nuns) on the Celian Hill at 6 Via Santo Stefano Rotondo in Roma, where he was cared for by the sisters until his death in September 1952.

Although Santayana was not a pragmatist in the mold of William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey, The Life of Reason arguably is the first extended treatment of pragmatism written.

[23] He also influenced many prominent people such as Harvard students T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Gertrude Stein, Horace Kallen, Walter Lippmann, W. E. B.

Du Bois, Conrad Aiken, Van Wyck Brooks, Felix Frankfurter, Max Eastman, and Wallace Stevens.

[24][25][26] Santayana is quoted by the Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman as a central influence in the thesis of his famous book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959).

[27] English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead quotes Santayana extensively in his magnum opus Process and Reality (1929).

[28] Chuck Jones used Santayana's description of fanaticism as "redoubling your effort after you've forgotten your aim" to describe his cartoons starring Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.