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Jose Ortega y Gasset

Jose Ortega y Gasset Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Jose Ortega y Gasset Quotes

“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.”

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Book:the Revolt of the Masses
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“The common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed. Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.”

ThinkingMenWorldBelieveHumansHas BeensStillsWholeCertainIndividualCausesDifficultCommonEffortSupportVirtueCreationFindingsNotionExcellentNew WorldMagnificentRapidsFacilityCommon ManDisappearanceEdifice
Book:the Revolt of the Masses
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“On the Bigotry of Culture: : it presented us with culture, with thought as something justified in itself, that is, which requires no justification but is valid by it's own essence, whatever its concrete employment and content maybe. Human life was to put itself at the service of culture because only thus would it become charged with value. From which it would follow that human life, our pure existence was, in itself, a mean and worthless thing.”

HumansMeanValuesCultureExistencePureEssenceEmploymentHuman LifeBigotryConcreteJustificationWorthlessJustifiedDehumanization
Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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“In their choice of lovers both the male and the female reveal their essential nature. The type of human being we prefer reveals the contours of our heart. Love is an impulse which springs from the most profound depths of our beings, and upon reaching the visible surface of life carries with it an alluvium of shells and seaweed from the inner abyss. A skilled naturalist, by filing these materials, can reconstruct the oceanic depths from which they have been uprooted.”

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Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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“Imagine for a moment that each one of us takes only a little more care for each hour of his days, that he demands in it a little more of elegance and intensity; then, multiplying all these minute pressures toward the perfecting and deepening of each life by all the others, calculate for yourselves the gigantic enrichment, the fabulous ennobling which this process would create for human society.”

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Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset
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