Top 40 Quotes by Jose Ortega y Gasset

The essence of man is, discontent, divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

The difficulties which I meet with in order to realize my existence are precisely what awaken and mobilize my activities, my capacities.

An 'unemployed' existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will.

Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist.

Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.