The 75 best phrases and reflections of Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset was an important figure in the movement known as the Noucentisme, whose fundamental basis was to break with the stereotypes of the way of life of the past and of other movements what openly challenged the status of the society that prevailed in the Franco dictatorship. A selection of the greatest reflections and quotes by José Ortega y Gasset, Spanish philosopher and essayist.

• We recommend you read: "The 90 best phrases of Friedrich Nietzsche"

Famous quotes by José Ortega y Gasset

As a great philosopher, this character has left us an incredible amount of works that makes us question the methods of life and what really governs the world. For this reason, we bring, in this article, the best phrases and reflections of Ortega y Gasset on these topics.

1. Love, who is painted blind, is seer and insightful because the lover sees things that the indifferent person does not see and that is why he loves.

Someone who truly loves, sees something that others have not seen.

2. Every day I am less interested in being a judge of things and I prefer to be his lover.

We must not judge anyone.

3. Life is a series of collisions with the future; It is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.

That which we have always wanted to be and we did not achieve, at the right moment, stalks us like a predator.

4. I walk slowly, do not rush, the only place you have to go is yourself.

You always have to know how we know ourselves.

5. There are those who have come into the world to fall in love with only one woman and, consequently, he is not likely to stumble upon her.

Falling in love with an ideal is never appropriate.

6. Man is the being that absolutely needs the truth and vice versa, the truth is the only thing that man essentially needs, the only unconditional need for him.

The truth always sets us free.

7. You can only progress when you think big, you can only advance when he looks far away.

Setting our goals high allows us to try harder.

8. The only thing to save the republic is to think big, shake off the small and project towards the future.

Good ideas are in charge of moving a country forward.

9. The 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.

It is important that we understand and generate important things.

10. Life takes on meaning when an aspiration is made of it not to give up anything.

Never give up on your dreams.

11. Loyalty is the shortest path between two hearts.

Being honest is a great weapon of seduction.

12. The wicked sometimes rests; the fool never.

Do not give up, even when everything seems to indicate that it is the best solution.

13. Although most people are going nowhere, it is a miracle to meet one who admits to being lost.

It is common that we do not know which way to go.

14. The true treasure of man is the treasure of his mistakes.

Mistakes are of great importance in life.

15. Falling in love is a state of mental misery in which the life of our conscience narrows, impoverishes and paralyzes.

For many people love is not rosy.

16. 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.

Politics has its flaws.

17. Whoever in the name of freedom renounces being who he has to be, has already killed himself while alive: he is a suicide on foot. Its existence will consist of a perpetual flight from the only reality that could be.

We cannot give up who we are for any reason.

18. Beware of democracy. As a policy it seems to be good. But of the democracy of thought and gesture, the democracy of the heart and custom is the most dangerous disease that a society can suffer.

It refers to the democratic system.

19. The beauty you attract rarely matches the beauty you fall in love with.

True beauty is what you really fall in love with.

20. Eternal human life would be unbearable. It gains value precisely because its brevity tightens, densifies and makes it compact.

Being eternal would be a difficult thing to handle.

21. I am me and my circumstance, and if I don't save her, I won't save myself.

There are circumstances that define us.

22. Desire dies automatically when it is achieved; it passes away when it is satisfied. Love, on the other hand, is an eternal unsatisfied desire.

True love is hard to find.

23. Effort is just effort when it starts to hurt.

Painless effort is unnecessary.

24. There are as many realities as there are points of view. The point of view creates the panorama.

Each situation has different points of view.

25. We are not shot into existence like a rifle bullet whose trajectory is absolutely determined.

We all have a path laid out and we have come to walk it.

26. I can commit to being honest; But don't ask me to commit to being impartial.

Sincerity is a commitment that we must all make.

27. As long as there is someone who believes in an idea, the idea lives.

If you have an idea, make it come true.

28. Tell me how you have fun and I'll tell you who you are.

The way we have fun reflects our personality.

29. Most of the men have an intellectual capacity far superior to the exercise that they do of it.

There are men who do not know how to use their knowledge.

30. With morality we correct the errors of our instincts, and with love the errors of our morals.

Honesty is a value that we must have.

31. Some people approach their life so that they live with hors d'oeuvres and side dishes. The main course is never known.

We should aspire to have a great life.

32. Our most deeply held, most unquestionable convictions are the most suspect. They form our limit, our borders, our prison.

There are ideologies that we have very established that do not allow us to advance.

33. Being an artist means stopping taking seriously that serious person that we are when we are not artists.

We cannot be one person today and another tomorrow.

34. It is only possible to advance when he looks far away. One can only progress when you think big.

Love is very important to everyone.

35. 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 it is our character that decides.

Our way of being is what determines our decisions.

36. The cynic, a parasite of civilization, lives denying it, for the simple reason that he is convinced that it will not fail.

There are people who let cynicism rule their life.

37. He who cannot do what he wants, let him want what he can.

Even if you do not achieve that dream goal, you can embrace your plan B that you can achieve.

38. Love consists in driving a being to the perfection of himself.

If you really love, focus on the loved one loving himself.

39. You can only progress when you think big, you can only advance when he looks far away.

The important thing is to get to know ourselves.

40. To fall in love is to feel enchanted by something, and something can only enchant if it is or appears to be perfection.

Love seeks perfection in everything.

41. Man differs from the animal in that he drinks without thirst and loves without time.

Human feelings are difficult to decipher.

42. Man has no nature, he only has history.

We all have stories both good and bad.

43. The will to be yourself is heroism.

We must always aspire to be better people.

44. Whenever you teach, teach to doubt what you teach.

We must always delve into what they teach us.

45. Authentic love is always done. In this love a being is ascribed once and for all and completely to another being. It is love that begins with love.

True love is unique and comes when we least expect it.

46. The past will not tell us what to do, but what we should avoid.

The mistakes made in the past do not allow you to have enough intelligence not to make them again.

47. There is no love without sexual instinct. Love uses this instinct as a brutal force, as the brig uses the wind.

Love and sex go hand in hand.

48. Love lives on detail and proceeds microscopically.

Being a detail-oriented is to enliven love.

49. The history of bullfighting is linked to that of Spain, so much so that without knowing the first, it is impossible to know the second.

It makes a reference to the history of bullfighting.

50. Love, who is painted blind, is seer and insightful because the lover sees things that the indifferent person does not see and that is why he loves.

Life is not easy, as the saying goes "you suffer but you also enjoy yourself."

51. While the tiger cannot stop being a tiger, it cannot be distilled, man lives in permanent risk of dehumanizing himself.

It is very easy to become an inhuman being.

52. There are as many realities as there are points of view. The point of view creates the panorama.

If you want to be a leader, you have to work hard for it and lead by example.

53. Grudge is the outpouring of a feeling of inferiority.

Whoever feels resentment is an inferior being.

54. Many men, like children, want one thing but not its consequences.

We must be prepared to assume the consequences of what we want.

55. To be surprised, to be surprised, is to begin to understand.

When we begin to wonder and be surprised, we begin to truly know life.

56. Youth needs to believe, a priori, superior. Of course you are wrong, but this is precisely the great right of youth.

Young people always think they are superior.

57. That we don't know what happens to us: that is what happens to us.

Sometimes it happens to us that we do not know what we want, much less what we want.

58. Thought is the only thing in the Universe whose existence cannot be denied: to deny is to think.

Thinking is an action that can be very difficult to achieve.

59. Let us avoid supplanting with our world that of others.

Each person is free to be happy.

60. Being emperor of oneself is the first condition to rule over others.

If we want to influence others, let's start by doing it ourselves.

61. Poetry is today the highest algebra of metaphors.

It refers to the world of writing.

62. Living is a constant process of deciding what to do.

Life is not easy to cope with.

63. Knowing that you do not know is perhaps the most difficult and delicate to know.

We can know something, but we know nothing concretely.

64. Civilization does not last because men are only interested in the results of it: anesthetics, automobiles, the radio.

We must help society have values.

65. Choosing a point of view is the initial act of a culture.

We all have different ways of looking at things.

66. Science is everything about which there is always discussion.

In every discussion there is some wisdom.

67. Every day I am less interested in being a judge of things and I prefer to be his lover.

Silence can be dangerous.

68. To hate someone is to feel irritation at their very existence.

Hatred makes the person feel things that they can later regret.

69. Men do not live together just for the sake of it, but to undertake large companies together.

Life as a couple is very easy to get everything.

70. Culture is labor, the production of human things; it is doing science, doing morality, making art.

Culture is important in any society.

71. Man adapts to everything, for the best and for the worst.

We are able to adapt to both the good and the bad.

72. A civilization can only endure if many contribute their collaboration to the effort. If everyone prefers to enjoy the fruit, civilization collapses.

We must all collaborate in the growth of society.

73. Hatred is a feeling that leads to the extinction of values.

No person who hates has good feelings.

74. 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.

Love is something difficult to decipher.

75. From wanting to be to believing that you already are, there is a distance from the tragic or the comic.

We must not believe ourselves better than others.