Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
There are, above all, times in which the human reality, always mobile, accelerates, and bursts into vertiginous speeds. Our time is such a one, for it is made of descent and fall.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the rapid changes and challenges of human existence in our current times.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset's quote highlights the dynamic nature of human reality, suggesting that we live in an era characterized by swift changes and a sense of decline. It speaks to the common experience of feeling overwhelmed by the pace of modern life and the existential reflections that arise from such conditions, urging individuals to recognize the transient and often tumultuous nature of existence.
In practice
During a lecture on modern life, you could use this quote to illustrate the rapid pace of societal change.
Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
"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.
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.
I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.
We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies.
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.
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
I shall not want Honor in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.
As we go through life we gradually discover who we are, but the more we discover, the more we lose ourselves.
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.
Too often, wealthy people born on third base blithely criticize the poor for failing to hit home runs. The advantaged sometimes perceive empathy as a sign of muddle-headed weakness rather than as a marker of civilization.
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