George Santayana, in a letter to Logan Pearsall Smith (24 May 1918) in The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana 1910 - 1920 (2002), p. 319

I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incident divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.

— George Santayana on Absurdity

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incident divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together." in the context of "George Santayana, in a letter to Logan Pearsall Smith (24 May 1918) in The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana 1910 - 1920 (2002), p. 319" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Absurdity" (S) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
George Santayana

About George Santayana

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana (16 December 1863 in Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in Rome, Italy) was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist.