We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies. Jose Ortega y Gasset More Quotes by Jose Ortega y Gasset More Quotes From Jose Ortega y Gasset Hating someone is feeling irritation by their mere existence. Jose Ortega y Gasset irritation hate feelings Romantic poses aside, let us recognize that "falling in love"...is an inferior state of mind, a form of transitory imbecility. Jose Ortega y Gasset falling-in-love mind love-is The direction of society has been taken over by a type of man who is not interested in the principles of civilisation. Not of this or that civilisation but from what we can judge today of any civilisation. The type of man dominant today is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world. Jose Ortega y Gasset rising-up taken men To learn English you must begin by thrusting the jaw forward, almost clenching the teeth, and practically immbilizing the lips. In this way the English produce the series of unpleasant little mews of which their language consists. Jose Ortega y Gasset teeth insulting littles The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands. Jose Ortega y Gasset real islands men Life is an operation which is done in a forward direction. One lives toward the future, because to live consists inexorably in doing, in each individual life making itself. Jose Ortega y Gasset done moving-forward life Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room. Jose Ortega y Gasset doctors beach people There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other. Jose Ortega y Gasset may two world Civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort. Jose Ortega y Gasset resorts lasts civilization All we are given is possibilities — to make ourselves one thing or another. Jose Ortega y Gasset one-thing possibility given Stupefaction, when it persists, becomes stupidity. Jose Ortega y Gasset persist surprise stupidity There is but one way left to save a classic; to give up revering him and use him for our own salvation. Jose Ortega y Gasset giving-up use way If the human intellect functions, it is actually in order to solve the problems which the man's inner destiny sets it. Jose Ortega y Gasset destiny wisdom men To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man. Jose Ortega y Gasset luxury sports men The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. Jose Ortega y Gasset inspiring men inspire Liberalism is that principle of political rights, according to which the public authority, in spite of being all-powerful, limits itself and attempts, even at ist own expense, to leave room in the state over which it rules for those to live who neither think nor feel as it does, that is to say as do the stronger, the majority. Jose Ortega y Gasset powerful rights thinking We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving. Jose Ortega y Gasset may order thinking The difficulties which I meet with in order to realize my existence are precisely what awaken and mobilize my activities, my capacities. Jose Ortega y Gasset adversity inspirational order I have always thought that clarity is a form of courtesy that the philosopher owes; moreover, this discipline of ours considers it more truly a matter of honor today than ever before to be open to all minds ... This is different from the individual sciences which increasingly [interpose] between the treasure of their discoveries and the curiosity of the profane the tremendous dragon of their closed terminology. Jose Ortega y Gasset discipline dragons discovery To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat. Jose Ortega y Gasset firm heavy hands
