Quote

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

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jose Ortega y Gasset
Age: 72 †
Born: 1883
Born: May 9
Died: 1955
Died: October 18
Essayist
Literary Critic
Mathematician
Opinion Journalist
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Poet
Politician
Sociologist
Translator
University Teacher
Madrid
Spain
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Cynicism
Convinced
Fail
Civilization
Failing
Parasite
Lives
Parasites
Reason
Cynic
Denying

More quotes by Jose Ortega y Gasset

Image
Life is an operation which is done in a forward direction. One lives toward the future, because to live consists inexorably in doing, in each individual life making itself.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
To wonder is to begin to understand.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The tapestry of history that seems so full of tragedy when viewed from the front has countless comic scenes woven into its reverse side. In truth, tragedy and comedy are the twin masks of history - its mass appeal.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
All life is the struggle, the effort to be itself.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
The type of human being we prefer reveals the contours of our heart.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
Commonplaces are the tramways of intellectual transportation.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
Revolution is not the uprising against preexisting order, but the setting up of a new order contradictory to the traditional one
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
The choice of a point of view is the initial act of a culture.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to complement the other.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
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
Image
To write well consists of continuously making small erosions, wearing away grammar in its established form, current norms of language. It is an act of permanent rebellion and subversion against social environs.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
The people with the clear heads are the ones who look life in the face, realize that everything in it is problematic, and feel themselves lost. And this is the simple truth: that to live is to feel oneself lost. Those who accept it have already begun to find themselves, to be on firm ground.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
There are people who so arrange their lives that they feed themselves only on side dishes.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
Man in a word has no nature what he has... is history.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
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.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Image
The past will not tell us what we ought to do, but... what we ought to avoid.
Jose Ortega y Gasset