Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
"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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of humanity remains unchanged despite social and historical evolution.
This quote suggests that beneath the layers of cultural and historical change that shape modern humans, there exists a fundamental 'natural' human being, reminiscent of our prehistoric ancestors. It implies that while humans have developed complex societies and lost some primal instincts, the core nature of humanity—rooted in survival and the instincts of a hunter—persists and remains vital even in contemporary life.
Themes
NatureHumanityInstinctHunterEvolutionHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of humanity.
More from Jose Ortega Y Gasset
All quotes →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.
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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
We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
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