Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else.
Jose Ortega y GassetI am I plus my surroundings; and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself.
Jose Ortega y GassetIn order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will.
Jose Ortega y GassetThere is but one way left to save a classic; to give up revering him and use him for our own salvation.
Jose Ortega y GassetBeliefs constitute the basic stratum, that which lies deepest, in the architecture of our life. By them we live, and by the same token we rarely think of them.... One may symbolize the individual life as a bank of issue. The bank lives on the credit of a gold reserve which is rarely seen, which lies at the bottom of metal coffers hidden in the vaults of the building. The most elementary caution will suggest that from time to time the effective condition of these guaranties--of these credences, one might say, that are the basis of credit--be passed in review.
Jose Ortega y Gasset