George Santayana was a noted Spanish American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, he was brought to Boston, USA at the age of eight to live with his mother and half-siblings. Uprooted from the simple life he led with his father in the medieval town of Avila, an incident he later characterized as ‘moral disinheritance’, he quickly learned English and entered Boston Latin School and then Harvard University. Soon after receiving his doctoral degree in philosophy from Harvard at the age of 25, he began his career at his alma mater as a faculty member, quickly establishing himself as a popular teacher and philosopher. Soon disillusioned with some aspects of academic life, he started preparing for early retirement at the age of 30, ultimately leaving his job and moving to Europe at the age of 48. Thereafter, he concentrated only on writing, publishing as much as nineteen books in the last forty years of his life. He spent his last years in Rome and died of cancer just a few days before his 89th birthday.