Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that ordinary minds embrace their commonness and assert their right to voice common perspectives.
In this quote, Jose Ortega Y Gasset reflects on the nature of the 'commonplace mind,' indicating that individuals who recognize their ordinariness often feel empowered to vocalize and advocate for the significance of ordinary thoughts and ideas. This highlights a belief that even the most commonplace viewpoints deserve recognition and can exert influence in society, thereby challenging hierarchies of thought and expertise.
Themes
CommonplaceMindAssuranceRightsProclaim
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a seminar discussing the value of different perspectives in decision-making.
More from Jose Ortega Y Gasset
All quotes →"Natural" man is always there, under the changeable historical man. We call him and he comes-a little sleepy, benumbed, without his lost form of instinctive hunter, but, after all, still alive. Natural man is first prehistoric man-the hunter.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
We have not reached ethical perfection in hunting. One never achieves perfection in anything, and perhaps it exists precisely so that one can never achieve it. Its purpose is to orient our conduct and to allow us to measure the progress accomplished. In this sense, the advancement achieved in the ethics of hunting is undeniable.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
Life is a terrible conflict, a grandiose and atrocious confluence. Hunting submerges man deliberately in that formidable mystery and therefore contains something of religious rite and emotion in which homage is paid to what is divine, transcendent, and in the laws of Nature.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
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