Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
By speaking, by thinking, we undertake to clarify things, and that forces us to exacerbate them, dislocate them, schematize them. Every concept is in itself an exaggeration.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the complexity of concepts and the challenges of understanding through language.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset suggests that when we express our thoughts and ideas, we inherently simplify and distort them, which can lead to misunderstanding. The act of verbalizing and conceptualizing is a process that exaggerates certain aspects of our thoughts, making them less pure and more schematic, highlighting the inherent difficulties in communication and understanding.
Themes
LanguageThoughtCommunicationUnderstandingConcepts
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of knowledge.
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.
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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