Sunday, December 22, 2024 Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

« All quotes from this author
 

Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak. It was incredible that the human species should have arrived at so noble an attitude, so paradoxical, so refined, so acrobatic, so anti-natural. Hence, it is not to be wondered at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious to get rid of it. It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth.
--
Chap. VIII: The Masses Intervene In Everything, And Why Their Intervention Is Solely By Violence

 
Jose Ortega y Gasset

» Jose Ortega y Gasset - all quotes »



Tags: Jose Ortega y Gasset Quotes, Authors starting by O


Similar quotes

 

The crucial thing for most of the left now, is what goes under the name of "anti-globalization". A sort of primitive, I would say non-Marxist form of anti-capitalism. If that is your main concern then by definition the United States is the main enemy. Which with only a little displacement means that any enemy of the United States is at least a potential friend. I have certainly read articles and heard speeches from quite prominent leftists that give the strong impression that jihadism may have it's drawbacks but it is better than no "anti-globalization" at all.

 
Christopher Hitchens
 

Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He’s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan.”

 
William G. Boykin
 

Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgement, the weapon you wield delivers - and let us not be coy here - naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.

 
Steven Erikson
 

It's a bad business. There is no firm front. We have separate strongpoints in which our units are holding off the attacks of superior enemy forces. Communications with them are weak.

 
Kliment Voroshilov
 

In its origin, liberalism had no ambition to be universal either in the sense of claiming to be valid for everyone and every human society or in the sense of purporting to give an answer to all the important questions of human life. ... The ideal of liberalism is a practically engaged political philosophy that is both epistemically and morally highly abstemious. That is, at best, a very difficult and possibly a completely hopeless project. It is therefore not surprising that liberals succumb again and again to the temptation to go beyond the limits they would ideally like to set for themselves and try to make of liberalism a complete philosophy of life. ... In the middle of the twentieth century, Kantianism presented itself as a “philosophical foundation” for a version of liberalism, and liberals at that time were sufficiently weak and self-deceived (or strong and opportunistic) to accept the offer.

 
Raymond Geuss
© 2009–2013Quotes Privacy Policy | Contact