2 quotations linked to Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies by or associated with George Santayana, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Mortality, enjoyment, social appearance, caricature, culture, reflection and Santayana’s essayistic contrasts between lived reality and convention.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“The world is a perpetual caricature of itself.”
Social appearances repeatedly exaggerate or contradict reality, making ordinary life look like an ongoing parody of its own pretensions.
Soliloquies in England, “Dickens”; Santayana uses caricature to describe the gap between living reality and conventional masks.
“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”
Mortality cannot be eliminated, so the practical answer is to make conscious use of the finite span between beginning and end.
Soliloquies in England, “War Shrines”; the sentence follows a contrast between strained worldliness and a more festive acceptance of life.
