230 Quotes by Jose Ortega y Gasset

The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man

El buen lector es que tiene casi constantemente la impresión de que no se ha enterado bien.

We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.

... every hypothesis is a construction, and because of this it is an authentic theory. In so far as they merit that exigent name, ideas are never a mere reception of presumed realities, but they are constructions of possibilities; therefore they are pure bits of imagination, or fine ideas of our own...

[...] rationalism is a form of intellectual bigotry which, in thinking about reality, tries to take it into account as little as possible.

Nine-tenths of that which is attributed to sexuality is the work of our magnificent ability to imagine, which is no longer an instinct, but exactly the opposite: a creation.

Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are.

There is no doubt; even a rejection can be the shadow of a caress”.

The only thing that interests the physicist is finding out on what assumptions a framework of things can be constructed which will enable us to know how to use them mechanically. Physics, as I have said on another occasion, is the technique of techniques and the ars combinatoria for fabricating machines. It is a knowledge which has scarcely anything to do with comprehension.