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Quote by Jose Ortega y Gasset

“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.”

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 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

“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.”

“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.”

Ifs Doe Form Morality Negative Empty Preserves Submit Lacking Norm Immoral Grammar Unwilling Amorality

Book:the Revolt of the Masses

Source: the Revolt of the Masses

“The assurance that we have no means of answering [final] questions is no valid excuse for callousness towards them. The more deeply should we feel, down to the roots of our being, their pressure and their sting. Whose hunger has ever been [sated] with the knowledge that he could not eat?”

Feels Should Mean Roots Pressure Finals Hunger Excuse Assurance Callousness Sated

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset

“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”

Thinking May Stills Facts Shows Seems Eye Century Everyday Interpretation Phenomenon Blindness Innate Utility Commonplace Nineteenth Century Epoch Utilitarian

Author:Jose Ortega y Gasset