From The Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the philosopher and poet George Santayana, (books by this author) born in Madrid (1863). He was the man who coined the famous phrase, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Santayana's father was Spanish and his mother was Scottish. He spent almost his entire life in the United States, though he never wanted to become a citizen. For many years he taught philosophy at Harvard, and his students included T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Conrad Aiken, Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens.

Santayana wrote a great deal about art and the importance of creative thinking. He once said, "Cultivate imagination, love it, give it endless forms, but do not let it deceive you. Enjoy the world, travel over it and learn its ways, but do not let it hold you." As he grew older, he became tired of teaching and what he called the "thistles of trivial and narrow scholarship," so he left Harvard and spent the rest of his life writing. His books include many philosophical works, as well as collections of poetry. He also spent about 20 years working on a novel, The Last Puritan (1935), about a young man's struggles in Boston high society just before World War I.

He said, "The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than the logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise."

And, "There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."