8 Posts found for Author: José Ortega y Gasset

Desiring something is, without doubt, a move toward possession of that something (“possession” meaning that in some way or other the object should enter our orbit and become part of us). For this reason, desire automatically dies when it is fulfilled; it ends with satisfaction… One may sometimes grow to love what he desires: we desire what we love, because we love it.

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Desires, Love, Psychology | Behavior

Love, strictly speaking, is pure sentimental activity toward an object, which can be anything — person or thing. As a “sentimental” activity, it remains, on the one hand, separated from all intellectual functions — perception, consideration, thought, recall, imagination — and, on the other hand, from desire, with which it is often confused. A glass of water is desired, but is not loved, when one … [ Read more ]

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior

All love passes through the frantic zone of “falling in love”; but, on the other hand, “falling in love” is not always followed by genuine love. Let us, therefore, not confuse the part with the whole.

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

Loving something is not simply “being,” but acting toward that which is loved… Love itself is, by nature, a transitive act in which we exert ourselves on behalf of what we love.

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

It would be outlandish to conclude that, after being consistently wrong in our dealings with reality, we should hit the mark in love alone. The projection of imaginary qualities upon a real object is a constant phenomenon… To see things — moreover, to appreciate them! — always means to complete them… Strictly speaking, no one sees things in their naked reality.

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Love, Psychology | Behavior, Relationships

I consider it a grave misfortune if, in any period or nation, intelligence remains, practically speaking, reduced to the limits of the intellectual. Intelligence asserts itself above all not in art, nor in science, but in intuition of life. The intellectual, however, barely lives; they are usually a person with poverty of intuition; their acts in the world are few and they have very little … [ Read more ]

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge

It is undeniable that a large part of science and literature has been produced in a somnambulistic trance; that is to say, by creatures who are not at all intelligent… Science and literature, as such, do not imply perspicacity; but, undoubtedly, their cultivation is a stimulant which favors the awakening of the mind and preserves it in that luminous state of alertness which constitutes intelligence. … [ Read more ]

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Math & Science

Probably, humanity has almost always lived in this somnambulistic state in which ideas are not a wide-awake, conscious reaction to things, but a blind, automatic habit, drawn from a repertory of formulae which the atmosphere infuses into the individual.

Author: José Ortega y Gasset | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) | Subjects: Concepts, Creativity and Innovation