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This Day in Gay History

December 16 Born George Santayana 1863 - GEORGE SANTAYANA, Spanish novelist, born (d: 1952);  A philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist and a lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States, wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters, even though, of his nearly 89 years, he spent only 39 in the U.S. He is perhaps best known as an aphorist, and for the oft-misquoted remark, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," from Reason in Common Sense, the first volume of his The Life of Reason. It is frequently said that Santayana’s The Last Puritan is the best novel ever written by a philosopher. It is also one of the saddest novels in literature for it relates the story of a painfully unrequited love that was Santayana’s own. The Harvard philosopher spent almost his entire life in love with an unresponsive heterosexual who, at times, couldn’t even remember his name. And it is this lifelong love — for Bertrand Russell’s brother Frank — that is reflected in The Last Puritan. What a beauty Santayana was! What a sad story!

Today's Gay Wisdom 2017 - The Wisdom of George Santayana Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring. Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others. History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there. Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different. Tyrants are seldom free; the cares and the instruments of their tyranny enslave them. The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer. Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.

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