Reason in Common Sense Quotes

Context

This quote comes from the philosophical book Reason in Common Sense, which was published by George Santayana in 1905. 

It's time for a history lesson, gang—or several. Georges Santayana says this line in the closing section of Volume I of his book. He basically argues that, if our world is ever going to make progress, it needs to remember what it's learned from the past. After all, change isn't the same thing as progress. Progress means taking what you've learned and building on it, but modern culture has a way of forgetting things so quickly that there's no chance to learn important lessons from the past.

To see what we mean, trying constructing the fifth floor of a model building that doesn't have a first or second floor. Get it? Like most things in life, you have to start at the bottom to know where you're coming from.

Where you've heard it

This is a line that people like to toss around quite a bit, but you might also recognize a Santayana shout-out in Billy Joel's 1989 hit song, "We Didn't Start the Fire." We imagine that Santayana gets mentioned for two reasons: First, he has a cool name. Second, the song is about learning lessons from the past, so it makes sense to include the guy who wrote one of the most famous lines ever about learning from the past.

Additional Notable References

• This is spoken by the character Molly Johnson in the 2008 movie, Swing Vote.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

As far as philosophical quotes go, this one is pretty safe. You might get the occasional eye roll, but only because this quote is so famous that many people have already heard it dozens of times. You might as well just put the thing on a T-shirt and save yourself the trouble of having to repeat it. But then again, those who do not hear this quote over and over are condemned to forget it… think about it.