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
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