Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
In our rather stupid time, hunting is belittled and misunderstood, many refusing to see it for the vital vacation from the human condition that it is, or to acknowledge that the hunter does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, he kills in order to have hunted.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Hunting is often misunderstood, yet it serves as an essential escape from life's burdens.
In this quote, Jose Ortega Y Gasset emphasizes that hunting is not merely about the act of killing but rather the deeper experience it provides as a form of respite from the complexities of human life. He argues that many people fail to appreciate hunting's role as a vital means of reconnecting with nature and understanding one's existence, suggesting that the journey and experience of hunting hold more significance than the final outcome.
Themes
HuntingLifeExperienceVacationHuman Condition
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the importance of outdoor experiences, one can quote this to emphasize the value of connecting with nature.
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
Similar quotes
Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.
Thomas JeffersonRead
The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its way into our experience, then we have missed the point of the Disciplines. We are dealing with actions, not merely states of mind.
Richard J. FosterRead
As God talked with Arjuna, so will He talk with you. As He lifted up the spirit and consciousness of Arjuna, so will He uplift you. As he granted Arjuna supreme spiritual vision, so will He confer enlightenment on you.
Paramahansa YoganandaRead
Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.
Ray BradburyRead
No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth
William ShakespeareRead
Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.
Bill GatesRead