60 phrases by José Ortega y Gasset to understand his philosophy
José Ortega y Gasset was a well-known intellectual, writer and philosopher linked to Noucentisme (a movement for cultural renewal that sought to break with the forms of the past), to perspectivism (there is no single truth but that each we have our own vision of life) and to ratiovitalism in a time situated between the moments before the establishment of the Second Republic and the dictatorship Francoist.
Throughout his work, this author left deep reflections on various themes that would contribute to and inspire many other later intellectuals.
In this article we will see a series of phrases by José Ortega y Gasset that allow us to understand part of his thinking.
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Quotes by José Ortega y Gasset
These are phrases by José Ortega y Gasset that tell us about his philosophy and serve to reflect on the various themes that the author touches throughout his life.
1. Love, who is painted blind, is seer and insightful because the lover sees things that the indifferent does not see and that is why he loves
Loving someone (not idealizing them) allows us to see the positive aspects of that person that people are generally unable to perceive. It is not about being blind but about knowing how to see.
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2. Loyalty is the shortest path between two hearts
The establishment of a bond of loyalty between two people allows mutual trust and esteem to emerge between both subjects.
3. I am me and my circumstance, and if I don't save her, I won't save myself
This well-known phrase by Ortega y Gasset refers to the fact that the environment that surrounds us is part of and influences at the same time that it is influenced by us. We do not exist separately, but we are part of the world and the world part of us.
4. Some people approach their life in such a way that they live with hors d'oeuvres and side dishes. The main course they never know
The author states that some people are content with the crumbs of their dreams, without ever seeking to achieve what they would have wanted to live.
5. With morality we correct the errors of our instincts, and with love the errors of our morals
This phrase tells us that through love we can correct our way of thinking when it is distorted or is not able to cope with reality adaptively. Love is placed above morality, as the force that can overcome its limitations and modify it for the better.
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6. Being from the left is, like being from the right, one of the infinite ways that man can choose to be an idiot: both, in effect, are forms of moral hemiplegia
The author criticizes that being placed in the extremes in such a way that a way of thinking is contrary to the other prevents observing and learning the good points and positive values of the other assumption side.
7. Life is a series of collisions with the future: it is not a sum of what we have been, but of what we yearn to be
We rule our life not by what we were in the past, but by what we want to achieve and how we want to become.
8. The beauty that attracts rarely matches the beauty that falls in love
Although many people find it difficult to make the distinction, attraction and love are not the same. What allows us to be attracted to someone differs from what allows us to fall in love.
9. Man differs from the animal in that he drinks without thirst and loves without time
This phrase expresses some of the differences between human nature and that of other animals.
10. Whenever you teach, teach to doubt what you teach
Knowledge acquisition is important, but we must be able to be critical of what has been instilled in us if we really want to evolve and grow.
11. While the tiger cannot stop being a tiger, he cannot disgrace himself, man lives in permanent risk of dehumanizing himself
Cruelty, misery and hatred can make the human being commit acts against his own nature, becoming inhuman. We must watch our actions.
12. I can commit to being honest; but don't ask me to commit to being impartial
We all have our own perspective on things, our preferences and beliefs, and it is not likely that we can be really impartial in most cases.
13. He who in the name of freedom renounces being who he has to be, has already killed himself while alive: he is a suicide on foot. His existence will consist of a perpetual flight from the only reality that he could be
Denying ourselves what we want and how we are only leads us to suffering and to be permanently vigilant not to approach what our nature dictates to us.
14. Being emperor of oneself is the first condition to rule others
He who wants to be in command must first be able to direct himself.
15. Nothing that man has been, is or will be has been, is or will be once and for all, but he has become one good day and another good day he will cease to be.
Everything begins and ends: there is nothing eternal nor that remains forever unalterable.
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16. Everyone who has known a great man has been surprised to find that his soul possessed a halo of childishness.
Although people usually think that great people are solemn and serious beings, the truth is that they do not stop being people who still maintain the spark of illusion and joy.
17. Many men, like children, want one thing but not its consequences
This phrase urges us to be responsible for our actions.
18. What is most valuable in man is his capacity for dissatisfaction
With this phrase, Ortega y Gasset refers to the need not to remain stagnant and not to settle for what has already been established. This allows us to develop and grow.
19. Let's avoid supplanting with our world that of others
Ortega y Gasset tells us that our freedom and our world should not interfere in a way that nullifies that of others. Each person must be able to be free without others trying to curtail them so that her world adapts to what others expect.
20. Every word says something more than it should and also less than it should express
When we interact with others We do not usuallysay everything we think, feel or believe, limiting ourselves to expressing only a part of what we would like to express. Or showing much more than we would like.
21. Eternal human life would be unbearable. It gains value precisely because its brevity tightens, densifies and makes it compact
What gives value to everything we do is the fact that one day we will die, since it makes each moment and each act a valuable moment that we have chosen to take advantage of.
22. From wanting to be to believing that one is already, the distance from the tragic to the comic goes
We must be aware of where we are, without believing what we are not and accepting that we must strive to achieve what we want.
23. Knowing that you do not know is perhaps the most difficult and delicate to know
Recognizing our limits is sometimes more complicated than it seems, and it is not easy to be able to visualize one's own ignorance.
24. Life has been given to us, but it has not been given to us made
We must build our own life through effort and dedication. We must create our own destiny and take responsibility for our decisions.
25. There are as many realities as there are points of view. The point of view creates the panorama
This phrase explains to some extent the basic idea of perspectivism. There is no single absolute truth but each one of us elaborates his own.
26. In each step we take in life we tread a hundred different paths
Each step we take is a decision we make, having been able to decide many other options. We shape our life from our decisions, creating our own path.
27. Love consists in driving a being to the perfection of himself
Love makes us want and help the loved one to develop and perfect himself, to be happy and to achieve his goals.
28. We are not shot into existence like a rifle bullet whose trajectory is absolutely determined. It is false to say that what determines us are circumstances. On the contrary, the circumstances are the dilemma against which we have to decide. But the one who decides is our character
We are not predetermined, but we are responsible for the decisions we make and for creating our own path in life.
29. Civilization does not last because men are only interested in the results of it: anesthetics, automobiles, the radio. But nothing that civilization gives is the natural fruit of an endemic tree. Everything is the result of an effort. A civilization can only endure if many contribute their collaboration to the effort. If everyone prefers to enjoy the fruit, civilization collapses
These phrases tell us that we must contribute to cultural development if we want to maintain progress and development, without focusing only on taking advantage of what has already been achieved.
30. It is important to emphasize the role that physiognomy and gestures such as a kiss play on love. They reveal the authentic being of the person we love
Small gestures, more than words, they are able to make us see the way of being and what the people we love are silent and do not express.
31. The greatest crime is now not in those who kill, but in those who do not kill but allow to kill
Criticism of the role of the silent witness who does nothing and allows misfortunes to occur.
32. Desire dies automatically when it is achieved; it passes away when it is satisfied. Love, on the other hand, is an eternal unsatisfied desire
The author emphasizes the difference between love and attraction or desire. Love will not be, because it is not something that has an end or objective but is still in force.
33. The vain person needs others, he seeks in them the confirmation of the idea that he wants to have of himself
The ego and its unwanted consequences.
34. The true treasure of man is the treasure of his mistakes
To err allows us to learn and grow, being a symptom that we have dared to experiment and live.
35. As long as there is someone who believes in an idea, the idea lives
As much as it may be censored, a perspective or idea will endure as long as there is someone who can and wants to keep it.
36. Thought is the only thing in the Universe whose existence cannot be denied: to deny is to think.
Although almost everything can be doubted, we cannot doubt or deny that we think because the doubt itself is already thought.
37. Everyone is strange and wonderful to wide open pupils
Those who allow themselves to be curious and explore the world with an open mind They are able to observe the wonders that every little thing we come across hides.
38. Progress does not consist in annihilating yesterday but the other way around, in preserving that essence of yesterday that had the virtue of creating that better today.
The fact of wanting to progress does not imply to ignore or discard what has led us to where we are, but to recognize it and maintain its base in order to develop further.
39. To live is more to live, a desire to increase one's heartbeat. When this is not the case, life is sick and, in its measure, it is not life
This phrase pushes us to get excited, to live in search of what excites us and according to our own desires.
40. A good part of men have no interior life other than that of their words, and their feelings are reduced to an oral existence
Many people focus solely on speaking, not daring to experience or act or feel. We must allow ourselves to express and develop not only knowledge but also emotion and experience.
41. To be surprised, to be surprised, is to begin to understand
Being able to be surprised with something is what makes us capable of understanding it since we stop taking what we know for granted and we can begin to understand reality.
42. In art, all repetition is null
Art is one of the ways for human beings to express what they feel and what comes to mind at a certain moment, just as it comes to us. Repeating or correcting a work of another is impossible since it would be trying to modify what it supposes: it would have ceased to be valid as art.
43. Youth needs to believe, a priori, superior. Of course you are wrong, but this is precisely the great right of youth
Being young means believing yourself capable of everything and trying to eat the world. We feel capable of anything and we tend to believe that we are right.
44. The command must be an annex to the exemplarity
Positions of power must be earned by being an example for those around us.
45. On the painful greba that life is usually, many joys sprout and bloom
Life is not easy and it is full of pain, but despite this we can find great moments of happiness and joy that we must appreciate and take advantage of. Even in moments of greatest pain we can find something positive.
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46. Culture is labor, production of human things; is doing science, doing morality, making art
Culture is one of the aspects that makes us human and allows us to evolve as a species.
47. The men most capable of thinking about love are those who have experienced it the least, and those who have lived it are often unable to meditate on it.
Those who live love do not usually dedicate themselves to thinking or reflecting on it but to experiencing it.
48. He who can not what he wants, that he wants what he can
This phrase pushes us to be able to adjust our desires to our possibilities. It is not that we stop dreaming, but that we are able to visualize how to reach them little by little based on our possibilities.
49. Life becomes meaningful when an aspiration is made of it not to give up anything
Not giving up when fighting for what we want is what this phrase proposes as the main meaning of life.
50. Tell me how you have fun and I'll tell you who you are
The aspects that cause us joy, that excite us and are interesting to us give us a lot of information about how we are.
51. Our most deeply held, most unquestionable convictions are the most suspect. They form our limit, our borders, our prison
The beliefs that we consider most true give us a way of understanding life, but at the same time they represent a limit that prevents us from seeing or accepting other perspectives that contradict them.
52. I walk slow, don't rush, the only place you have to go is yourself
This phrase tells us that the only thing we really need to achieve is to be ourselves.
53. Without love, we would be like children lost in the vastness of the cosmos
Love is a force that guides us towards what we want and makes us capable of leading and fighting for it.
54. Man is the being that absolutely needs the truth and vice versa, the truth is the only thing that man essentially needs, his only unconditional need
This phrase tells us that what the human being seeks is to know the truth, although each of us has his own.
55. Men do not live together just for the sake of it, but to undertake large companies together
This phrase tells us that the strength of the group as a whole can help us achieve growth and achieve great goals.
56. Everything that exists is a virgin that has to be loved to become fertile
Wondering and loving things is what makes us capable of understanding them, and developing them and generating new things from it.
57. There is about the passive to see an active liability, which interprets by seeing and sees by interpreting, a seeing that is looking
Ortega y Gasset indicates that seeing is not something really passive, but rather that through observation we interpret reality (an interpretation that in turn causes us to see things differently).
58. It is only possible to go forward when you look beyond. One can only progress when you think big
Progress is only possible if we set great goals to reach little by little. If our goals are small, so will your results.
59. Science consists of replacing the knowledge that seemed safe by a theory, that is, by something problematic
Science allows us to doubt the established and generate hypotheses and theories about how the world works, without trying to establish dogmatisms and accepting the possibility of error.
60. Pure reason has to yield its imperative to vital reason: life must be vital
The author considers that reason is not the establishment of an absolute truth separate from us, but is linked to life and what we live. There is no reality that is superior to us, nor are we superior to reality: we are part of reality. It pushes us to live our life based on our decisions and appreciating life.