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Quotes from the work of Ortega y Gasset to gain clarity and live one’s circumstance with a love for reality
A weekly quotation, a standing invitation:
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- There is nothing more fruitful than self-aware ignoranceIsabel Ferreiro “You ask certain questions—that is to say, you admit the possibility that you are unaware of them. That tiny pore of ignorance that you leave in the polished surface of your spirit will save you. Through it, a higher knowledge will seep in. Believe me: there is nothing more fruitful than self-aware ignorance. From Plato to the present day, the sharpest thinkers have found nothing better than the… Leer Más
- Let all forms of sanctimoniousness —whether religious or secular— be repugnant to us, with their mawkishness and unctuousness, their eyes turned heavenward, their stubbornness, and their inability to see things on all four sidesIsabel Ferreiro Ortega uses the word “beaterĂa” a hundred times throughout his work. The first time, in 1919, was to refer to “worker sanctimoniousness”. With this scandalous opening —which brings together two worlds that would seem, at first glance, to have nothing in common: the worker and the sanctimounious —he already points out that sanctimoniousness can be found everywhere. And he exposes all kinds of sanctimoniousness: religious, secular, and philanthropic;… Leer Más
- Rather than «either one or the other», we feel that it would be best to encompass bothIsabel Ferreiro “The typical aspiration of our age (…) seeks everywhere the integration of opposites rather than their exclusion”, Ortega wrote in 1925. It seems like a dream today that this should be the “typical aspiration” of his time; but if he says so, that’s how it would be or at least how he would see it. He repeats this in 1926: “The sensibility of our time seems guided by… Leer Más
- Don’t be the judge of things, be their loverIsabel Ferreiro “Don’t be the judge of things; be their lover” sounds like one of those timeless maxim known to every human heart, and yet we live as if we had forgotten it, devoting ourselves more to judging than to loving. Ortega writes this phrase in a working note on “Cervantes and Don Quixote”, while preparing his first book, Meditations on Quixote. And there he expands on it a bit:… Leer Más
- I am myself and my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I do not save myselfMeditations on Quixote (1914) Isabel Ferreiro Let us begin by returning to this famous phrase —one of Ortega’s most celebrated— which appears in his first book as a proclamation of the integrative philosophy he would develop throughout his entire body of work. This statement may lead us to think that if I do not accept all that exists, I do not accept myself and therefore cannot save myself. Or, viewed… Leer Más
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