A round glass flask on a brass tripod with a small yellow flower growing inside it.

Original artwork, not a still

The Life of Reason, Vol. 1 • 1905

George Santayana

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

Santayana says happiness is the only justification for living; where it fails, existence is a "mad and lamentable experiment." It's a philosopher's claim that life has to earn its keep through happiness, otherwise it looks like a badly conceived trial.

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