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.
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I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.
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We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies.
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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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