Trust a philosopher to find a recipe for wisdom that begins with a smile. Writer and thinker George Santayana (1863–1952) was born in Madrid, Spain. His parents were older when he arrived, so he once said they felt “more like grandparents in many ways,” yet their presence gave his early life a sense of depth and distance that would echo through his work.

In 1872, his family left what he called “the complex passions and intrigues” of Spanish life for Boston. Santayana studied at Harvard, then returned as a beloved professor, guiding and influencing such famous writers as T. S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein. “Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness,” he wrote, inviting his students and readers to imagine more than they could presently see.

A lover of writing, ideas, and movement, Santayana eventually used a small inheritance to step away from academic life. In 1912 he retired from Harvard and sailed back across the Atlantic, living first in Oxford, then Paris, and finally Rome. He chose a life that matched his inner rhythm, surrounded by books, art, and conversation.

“It is wisdom to believe the heart,” he said, a master of the brief, luminous epigram. His work celebrated the creative imagination and the quiet strength that comes when thought and feeling walk together. Over the years he wrote more than twenty volumes of philosophy, poetry, and criticism, along with a best-selling novel, The Last Puritan (1935), and a three-volume autobiography.

Santayana is also remembered for a sentence that has traveled far beyond the world of philosophy: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” A cautionary invitation, asking us to look back with honesty so that we can move forward with more care.

His gentle reminder to take everything with good humor and a grain of salt does not dismiss life’s challenges. Instead, he suggests a way to walk through them: with a ready laugh and willingness to learn from whatever arrives.