Quotessence
Home / Authors / Jose Ortega y Gasset Books
Jose Ortega y Gasset

Jose Ortega y Gasset Books

Philosopher

Related Quotes

“I think that the philosopher must, for his own purposes, carry methodological strictness to an extreme when he is investigating and pursuing his truths, but when he is ready to enunciate them and give them out, he ought to avoid the cynical skill with which some scientists, like a Hercules at the fair, amuse themselves by displaying to the public the biceps of their technique.”

ThinkingGivingPurposeReadyOughtSkillsFairsScientistPhilosopherExtremesTechniqueCynicalMethodologyInvestigatingBiceps
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“Were art to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him to an unexpected boyishness. The symbol of art is seen again in the magic flute of the Great God Pan which makes the young goats frisk at the edge of the grove. All modern art begins to appear comprehensible and in a way great when it is interpreted as an attempt to instill youthfulness into an ancient world.”

MenWorldWayArtYoungMagicModernArt IsAncientEdgesSymbolsSavingUnexpectedSeriousnessGoatsRestoringInstillModern ArtFlutesGroveYouthfulnessAncient World
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“Strictly speaking, the mass, as a psychological fact, can be defined without waiting for individuals to appear in mass formation. In the presence of one individual we can decide whether he is "mass" or not. The mass is all that which sets no value on itself good or ill based on specific grounds, but which feels itself "just like everybody," and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else.”

FeelsFactsValuesIndividualWaitingMassConcernedIllPsychologicalDefinedNeverthelessFormation
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“The history of the Roman Empire is also the history of the uprising of the Empire of the Masses, who absorb and annul the directing minorities and put themselves in their place. Then, also, is produced the phenomenon of agglomeration, of "the full." For that reason, as Spengler has very well observed, it was necessary, just as in our day, to construct enormous buildings. The epoch of the masses is the epoch of the colossal.”

WellsReasonBuildingMassEnormousMinoritiesEmpiresPhenomenonConstructsRoman EmpireUprisingEpochColossal
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
Create image

“I have never said that human society ought to be aristocratic, but a great deal more than that. What I have said, and still believe with ever-increasing conviction, is that human society is always, whether it will or no, aristocratic by its very essence, to the extreme that it is a society in the measure that it is aristocratic, and ceases to be such when it ceases to be aristocratic. Of course I am speaking now of society and not of the State.”

BelieveHumansSaidStillsStatesCoursesDealsOughtEssenceConvictionExtremesCeaseHuman SocietyAristocratic
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
Create image

“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.”

ReasonWholeCertainUniverseIndividualStrongDangerAdventureDramaRadicalPrimariesSubstanceMeaning Of LifeCollectivesBiologyVery StrongPortionsChaptersEntityStrictBiographiesEmployedHistoricBiologistCompact
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“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.”

MenWorldHas BeensPrinciplesTakenJudgingTypeRisingMidstPrimitiveNot InterestedDominantCivilisationCivilisedRising Up
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“The surrealist thinks he has outstripped the whole of literary history when he has written (here a word that there is no need to write) where others have written "jasmines, swans and fauns." But what he has really done has been simply to bring to light another form of rhetoric which hitherto lay hidden in the latrines.”

ThinkingNeedsWritingHas BeensDoneWholeLightFormWrittenLaysRhetoricSwansJasmineSurrealistFauns
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
Create image

“He [the "specialist"] is one who, out of all that has to be known in order to be a man of judgment, is only acquainted with one science, and even of that one only knows the small corner in which he is an active investigator. He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge.”

KnowsMenGivingLyingOrderNamesKnownVirtueJudgmentCuriosityCornersActiveTerritorySchemesBe A ManSpecialistsInvestigators
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“[I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success.”

MenFactsModernCivilizationRootsExtraordinaryThanksSymbolsMediocreCommonplaceModern ScienceExperimental Science
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
Create image

“[T]he mass-man sees in the State an anonymous power, and feeling himself, like it, anonymous, he believes that the State is something of his own. Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources. This is the gravest danger that to-day threatens civilisation: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State.”

MenBelieveCountryStatesFeelingsProblemSocialEffortDangerDemandConflictMassSolutionsResourcesDifficultyImmenseSpontaneousInterventionCivilisationPublic LifeAbsorption
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
Create image

“This fighting-shy of every obligation partly explains the phenomenon, half ridiculous, half disgraceful, Of the setting-up in our days of the platform of "youth" as youth. ... In comic fashion people call themselves "young," because they have heard that youth has more rights than obligations, since it can put off the fulfilment of these latter to the Greek Kalends of maturity. ...[T]he astounding thing at present is that these take it as an effective right precisely in order to claim for themselves all those other rights which only belong to the man who has already done something.”

PeopleMenDoneYoungOrderFightingHalfRightsHeardFashionYouthHe ManClaimsRidiculousSettingObligationSettingsComicGreekMaturityLatterShyPhenomenonPlatformsFulfilmentDisgraceful
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“What, by a word lacking even in grammar, is called amorality, is a thing that does not exist. If you are unwilling to submit to any norm, you have, nolens volens , to submit to the norm of denying all morality, and this is not amoral, but immoral. It is a negative morality which preserves the empty form of the other.”

IfsDoeFormMoralityNegativeEmptyPreservesSubmitLackingNormImmoralGrammarUnwillingAmorality
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
Create image

“The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility”

ThinkingMayStillsFactsShowsSeemsEyeCenturyEverydayInterpretationPhenomenonBlindnessInnateUtilityCommonplaceNineteenth CenturyEpochUtilitarian
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image

“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.”

MindDifferentMatterTodayFormIndividualDisciplineHonorDiscoveryCuriosityPhilosopherTreasureClarityDragonsCourtesyProfaneTerminology
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
Create image