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Quote by Jose Ortega y Gasset

“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.”

Quote by Jose Ortega y Gasset

Author

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Jose Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish philosopher born on May 9, 1883, and died on October 18, 1955. He is known for his work in the philosophy of knowledge and culture, and for his analysis of the nature of man and society. more

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“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.”

Wells Reason Building Mass Enormous Minorities Empires Phenomenon Constructs Roman Empire Uprising Epoch Colossal

Book:the Revolt of the Masses

Source: the Revolt of the Masses

“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.”

Believe Humans Said Stills States Courses Deals Ought Essence Conviction Extremes Cease Human Society Aristocratic

Book:the Revolt of the Masses

Source: the Revolt of the Masses

“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.”

“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.”

Men World Has Beens Principles Taken Judging Type Rising Midst Primitive Not Interested Dominant Civilisation Civilised Rising Up

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“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.”

Thinking Needs Writing Has Beens Done Whole Light Form Written Lays Rhetoric Swans Jasmine Surrealist Fauns

Book:the Revolt of the Masses

Source: the Revolt of the Masses

“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.”

Knows Men Giving Lying Order Names Known Virtue Judgment Curiosity Corners Active Territory Schemes Be A Man Specialists Investigators

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“[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.”

Men Facts Modern Civilization Roots Extraordinary Thanks Symbols Mediocre Commonplace Modern Science Experimental Science

Book:the Revolt of the Masses

Source: the Revolt of the Masses

“[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.”

Source: the Revolt of the Masses

“That Marxism should triumph in Russia, where there is no industry, would be the greatest contradiction that Marxism could undergo. But there is no such contradiction, for there is no such triumph. Russia is Marxist more or less as the Germans of the Holy Roman Empire were Romans.”

Should Would Be Industry Holy Russia Triumph Contradiction Empires Marxism Roman Empire Marxist

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“It would be a piece of ingenuousness to accuse the man of today of his lack of moral code. The accusation would leave him cold, or rather, would flatter him. Immoralism has become a commonplace, and anybody and everybody boasts of practising it.”

Men Would Be Moral Pieces He Man Cold Code Boast Commonplace Accusation Moral Code

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset