Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Jose Ortega y. Gasset (Spanish Philosopher)

Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) was a Spanish critic, journalist, and philosopher. He greatly influenced the cultural and literary renaissance of Spain in the 20th century.

Born in Madrid, Ortega studied at Madrid University (1898–1904) and was a professor from 1911. He also lived in South America and Portugal (1931–46.) Meditaciones del Quijote (1914; Meditations on Quixote, 1961) outlines national symbols in Spanish literature and compares them with others. In El tema de nuestro tiempo (1923, ‘Modern Theme,’) he argues that great philosophies demarcate their epochs’ cultural horizons.

Ortega’s best-known work, La rebelión de las masas (1930; The Revolt of the Masses, 1932,) foreshadowed the Spanish Civil War. Often mistakenly taken as a right-wing and elitist document, it is a masterly analysis of the 20th-century situation in which the masses have revolted against minorities. He corrected any possible ambiguities inherent in this book in his posthumous El hombre y la gente (1957; Man and People, 1957.)

Ortega introduced Marcel Proust and James Joyce to Spain, and his writing has radically influenced the majority of Spanish writers of his time and after him.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jose Ortega y. Gasset

The past will not tell us what we ought to do, but it will what we ought to avoid.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Reflection, Past, Regret

The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

Stupefaction, when it persists, becomes stupidity.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Genius

Minorities are individual or groups of individuals especially qualified. The masses are the collection of people not specially qualified.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

By speaking, by thinking, we undertake to clarify things, and that forces us to exacerbate them, dislocate them, schematize them. Every concept is in itself an exaggeration.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Exaggeration, Perception

Abasement, degradation is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Appropriateness, Aptness, Success

There are people who so arrange their lives that they feed themselves only on side dishes.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Life

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Understanding

Man always travels along precipices. His truest obligation is to keep his balance.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Obligation

Life means to have something definite to do—a mission to fulfill—and in the measure in which we avoid setting our life to something, we make it empty. Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Aspirations, Goals

The essence of man is, discontent, divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Discontent

The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Creation

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Excellence

I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

Biography is: a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Legacy, Biography

We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, “here and now” without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Living, The Present

Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Decisions

All life is the struggle, the effort to be itself.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Being Ourselves

In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

The mass believes that it has the right to impose and to give force of law to notions born in the cafe.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Youth

For the person for whom small things do not exist, the great is not great.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Little Things, Things

Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most suspect, they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Change, Conviction, Aspirations, Goals

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.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Living, Life

The difficulties which I meet with in order to realize my existence are precisely what awaken and mobilize my activities, my capacities.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Difficulty, Adversity, Difficulties

Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset

The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Goodness

Man has to live with the body and soul which have fallen to him by chance.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Acceptance, Realization, Awareness

Excellence means when a man or woman asks of himself more than others do.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset
Topics: Excellence

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