George Santayana

Date of Birth: December 16, 1863

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Date of Death: September 26, 1952

Biography

George Santayana, born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. He was born on December 16, 1863, in Madrid, Spain. Santayana is known for his contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy, and literary criticism. His notable works include “The Sense of Beauty,” “The Life of Reason,” and “Scepticism and Animal Faith.” He spent a significant portion of his academic career at Harvard University before retiring to Europe, where he continued to write and publish. Santayana’s philosophy is often characterized by his materialist views on nature and his emphasis on the spiritual and moral dimensions of human life.

5 Interesting Facts about George Santayana

1. George Santayana was a professor at Harvard University, where he taught the future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.

2. He coined the famous aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

3. Santayana never married and lived a rather solitary life, dedicating most of his time to writing and philosophy.

4. He moved to Europe in 1912 and spent the last years of his life in Rome, Italy.

5. Despite being a philosopher, Santayana wrote several novels, including “The Last Puritan,” which became a bestseller and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.