Every intellectual effort sets us apart from the commonplace, and leads us by hidden and difficult paths to secluded spots where we find ourselves amid unaccustomed thoughts. Jose Ortega y Gasset More Quotes by Jose Ortega y Gasset More Quotes From Jose Ortega y Gasset The individual point of view is the only point of view from which one is able to look at the world in its truth. Jose Ortega y Gasset truthviewslooks Rancor is an outpouring of a feeling of inferiority. Jose Ortega y Gasset rancorinferiorityfeelings When you are fed up with the troublesome present, you take your gun, whistle for your dog, go out to the mountain, and, without further ado, give yourself the pleasure during a few hours or a few days of being "Paleolithic." Jose Ortega y Gasset huntinggundog The real magic wand is the child's own mind. Jose Ortega y Gasset magicrealchildren Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most suspect; they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries. Jose Ortega y Gasset boundarieslife-isfame I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me. Jose Ortega y Gasset save-megardenjustice Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved. Jose Ortega y Gasset adolescencepoetry-is Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us - by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. 'To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law.' Jose Ortega y Gasset noble-manrightsmen Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values. Jose Ortega y Gasset angerhatredfeelings Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly. Jose Ortega y Gasset magicgeniusinspirational There are people who so arrange their lives that they feed themselves only on side dishes. Jose Ortega y Gasset side-disheslifepeople We need to study the whole of history, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it. Jose Ortega y Gasset historyfallneeds The heart of man does not tolerate an absence of the excellent and supreme. Jose Ortega y Gasset doeheartmen Living is nothing more or less than doing one thing instead of another. Jose Ortega y Gasset one-thing The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will. Jose Ortega y Gasset knowingrightsmind Law is born from despair of human nature. Jose Ortega y Gasset despairhuman-naturelaw Revolution is not the uprising against preexisting order, but the setting up of a new order contradictory to the traditional one Jose Ortega y Gasset uprisingrevolutionorder Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst. Jose Ortega y Gasset adaptabilityworstmen An 'unemployed' existence is a worse negation of life than death itself. Jose Ortega y Gasset unemployedunemploymentlife Life, individual or collective, personal or historic, is the one entity in the universe whose substance is compact of danger, of adventure. It is, in the strict sense of the word, drama. The primary, radical meaning of life appears when it is employed in the sense not of biology, but of biography. For the very strong reason that the whole of biology is quite definitely only a chapter in certain biographies, it is what biologists do in the portion of their lives open to biography. Jose Ortega y Gasset strongadventuredrama
