Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes that our thoughts serve a practical purpose for survival rather than simply existing as abstract ideas.
JosΓ© Ortega y Gasset's quote highlights the pragmatic role of thinking in human life. Rather than engaging in thoughts for their own sake, he argues that our cognitive processes are primarily aimed at ensuring our survival and achieving practical outcomes. This suggests that thought is a means to navigate the challenges of existence, rather than an end in itself.
Themes
ThinkingSurvivalPhilosophyExistencePurpose
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of critical thinking in education.
More from Jose Ortega Y Gasset
All quotes β"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
Similar quotes
Ireland unfree shall never be at peace
Patrick PearseRead
Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill our hearts with tolerance.
Stan LeeRead
One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!
Thomas CarlyleRead
If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.
Anton ChekhovRead
The man smiled at him a sly smile. As if they knew a secret between them, these two. Something of age and youth and their claims and the justice of those claims. And of their claims upon them. The world past, the world to come. Their common transciencies. Above all a knowing deep in the bone that beauty and loss are one.
Cormac MccarthyRead
Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.
Bobby SandsRead