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I am free by compulsion, whether I wish to be or not.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
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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
Compulsion
Whether
Free
Wish
More quotes by Jose Ortega y Gasset
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
tragedy in the theater opens our eyes so that we can discover and appreciate the heroic in reality.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Every life is, more or less, a ruin among whose debris we have to discover what the person ought to have been.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
There are people who so arrange their lives that they feed themselves only on side dishes.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
In this initial illimitableness of possibilities that characterizes one who has no nature there stands out only one fixed, pre-established, and given line by which he may chart his course, only one limit: the past.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Life is fired at us point blank.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
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
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
Excellence means when a man or woman asks of himself more than others do.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
In these years we are witnessing the gigantic spectacle of innumerable human lives wandering about lost in their own labyrinths, through not having anything to which to give themselves.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Poetry has become the higher algebra of metaphors.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
There is no doubt even a rejection can be the shadow of a caress”.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
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
Hating someone is feeling irritation by their mere existence.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
One age cannot be completely understood if all the others are not understood. The song of history can only be sung as a whole.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
To learn English you must begin by thrusting the jaw forward, almost clenching the teeth, and practically immbilizing the lips. In this way the English produce the series of unpleasant little mews of which their language consists.
Jose Ortega y Gasset
