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Imagine For A Moment That Each One Of Us Takes Only A Little More Care For Each Hour Of His Days, That He Demands In It A Little More Of Elegance And Intensity; Then, Multiplying All These Minute Pressures Toward The Perfecting And Deepening Of Each Life By All The Others, Calculate For Yourselves The Gigantic Enrichment, The Fabulous Ennobling Which This Process Would Create For Human Society.
-Jose Ortega Y Gasset
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Imagine For A Moment

Jose Ortega Y Gasset
Imagine For A Moment That Each One Of Us Takes Only A Little More Care For Each Hour Of His Days, That He Demands In It A Little More Of Elegance And Intensity; Then, Multiplying All These Minute Pressures Toward The Perfecting And Deepening Of Each Life By All The Others, Calculate For Yourselves The Gigantic Enrichment, The Fabulous Ennobling Which This Process Would Create For Human Society.
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Perfection
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The Metaphor Is Perhaps One Of Man's Most Fruitful Potentialities. Its Efficacy Verges On Magic, And It Seems A Tool For Creation Which God Forgot Inside One Of His Creatures When He Made Him. All Our Faculties Keep Us Within The Realm Of The Real, Of What Is Already There. The Most We Can Do Is To Combine Things Or Break Them Up. The Metaphor Alone Furnishes An Escape; Between The Real Things, It Lets Emerge Imaginary Reefs, A Crop Of Floating Islands.
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Nobility Is Defined By The Demands It Makes On Us - By Obligations, Not By Rights. Noblesse Oblige. 'to Live As One Likes Is Plebeian; The Noble Man Aspires To Order And Law.'
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In 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.
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Life Is A Struggle With Things To Maintain Itself Among Them. Concepts Are The Strategic Plan We Form In Answer To The Attack.
Life
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The Surrealist Thinks He Has Outstripped The Whole Of Literary History When He Has Written (here A Word That There Is No Need To Write) Where Others Have Written "jasmines, Swans And Fauns." But What He Has Really Done Has Been Simply To Bring To Light Another Form Of Rhetoric Which Hitherto Lay Hidden In The Latrines.
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An 'unemployed' Existence Is A Worse Negation Of Life Than Death Itself.
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Life Is Fired At Us Point Blank.
Life
Life Is
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The Will To Be Oneself Is Heroism
Heroism
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The People With The Clear Heads Are The Ones Who Look Life In The Face, Realize That Everything In It Is Problematic, And Feel Themselves Lost. And This Is The Simple Truth: That To Live Is To Feel Oneself Lost. Those Who Accept It Have Already Begun To Find Themselves, To Be On Firm Ground.
Acceptance
Simple
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The Characteristic Of The Hour Is That The Commonplace Mind, Knowing Itself To Be Commonplace, Has The Assurance To Proclaim The Rights Of The Commonplace And To Impose Them Wherever It Will.
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Hate
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Feelings
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There Are People Who So Arrange Their Lives That They Feed Themselves Only On Side Dishes.
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The Nineteenth Century, Utilitarian Throughout, Set Up A Utilitarian Interpretation Of The Phenomenon Of Life Which Has Come Down To Us And May Still Be Considered As The Commonplace Of Everyday Thinking. ... An Innate Blindness Seems To Have Closed The Eyes Of This Epoch To All But Those Facts Which Show Life As A Phenomenon Of Utility
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Everyday
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Barbarism Is The Absence Of Standards To Which Appeal Can Be Made.
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Discipline
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The Individual Point Of View Is The Only Point Of View From Which One Is Able To Look At The World In Its Truth.
Truth
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Looks
Men Play At Tragedy Because They Do Not Believe In The Reality Of The Tragedy Which Is Actually Being Staged In The Civilised World
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Triumph Cannot Help Being Cruel.
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The Choice Of A Point Of View Is The Initial Act Of A Culture.
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Glowing
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Being An Artist Means Ceasing To Take Seriously That Very Serious Person We Are When We Are Not An Artist.
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The Mass Believes That It Has The Right To Impose And To Give Force Of Law To Notions Born In The Café.
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The Hunter Who Accepts The Sporting Code Of Ethics Keeps His Commandments In The Greatest Solitude, With No Witness Or Audience Other Than The Sharp Peaks Of The Mountain, The Roaming Cloud, The Stern Oak, The Trembling Juniper, And The Passing Animal.
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Farce
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Life Is A Series Of Collisions With The Future.
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We Do Not Live To Think, But, On The Contrary, We Think In Order That We May Succeed In Surviving.
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And This Is The Simple Truth - That To Live Is To Feel Oneself Lost. He Who Accepts It Has Already Begun To Find Himself To Be On Firm Ground.
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Man In A Word Has No Nature; What He Has... Is History.
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The Person Portrayed And The Portrait Are Two Entirely Different Things.
Two
Portraits
Different
When You Are Fed Up With The Troublesome Present, You Take Your Gun, Whistle For Your Dog, Go Out To The Mountain, And, Without Further Ado, Give Yourself The Pleasure During A Few Hours Or A Few Days Of Being "paleolithic."
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Moving On
Moving Forward
Decision
By Speaking, By Thinking, We Undertake To Clarify Things, And That Forces Us To Exacerbate Them, Dislocate Them, Schematize Them. Every Concept Is In Itself An Exaggeration.
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Life Is An Operation Which Is Done In A Forward Direction. One Lives Toward The Future, Because To Live Consists Inexorably In Doing, In Each Individual Life Making Itself.
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Moving Forward
Done
Life Is A Series Of Collisions With The Future; It Is Not The Sum Of What We Have Been, But What We Yearn To Be.
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Were Art To Redeem Man, It Could Do So Only By Saving Him From The Seriousness Of Life And Restoring Him To An Unexpected Boyishness. The Symbol Of Art Is Seen Again In The Magic Flute Of The Great God Pan Which Makes The Young Goats Frisk At The Edge Of The Grove. All Modern Art Begins To Appear Comprehensible And In A Way Great When It Is Interpreted As An Attempt To Instill Youthfulness Into An Ancient World.
Art
Men
Magic
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Men
Generations
Great Men
A Fascinating Mystery Of Nature Is Manifested In The Universal Fact Of Hunting: The Inexorable Hierarchy Among Living Beings. Every Animal Is In A Relationship Of Superiority Or Inferiority With Regard To Every Other. Strict Equality Is Exceedingly Improbable And Anomalous.
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Animal
Facts
Man Must Not Only Make Himself: The Weightiest Thing He Has To Do Is To Determine What He Is Going To Be. He Is Causa Sui To The Second Power.
Men
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To Learn English You Must Begin By Thrusting The Jaw Forward, Almost Clenching The Teeth, And Practically Immbilizing The Lips. In This Way The English Produce The Series Of Unpleasant Little Mews Of Which Their Language Consists.
Insulting
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Imagine For A Moment That Each One Of Us Takes Only A Little More Care For Each Hour Of His Days, That He Demands In It A Little More Of Elegance And Intensity; Then, Multiplying All These Minute Pressures Toward The Perfecting And Deepening Of Each Life By All The Others, Calculate For Yourselves The Gigantic Enrichment, The Fabulous Ennobling Which This Process Would Create For Human Society.
Perfection
Littles
Fabulous
A Revolution Only Lasts Fifteen Years, A Period Which Coincides With The Effectiveness Of A Generation.
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Years
Effectiveness
Tell Me To What You Pay Attention And I Will Tell You Who You Are.
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In This Initial Illimitableness Of Possibilities That Characterizes One Who Has No Nature There Stands Out Only One Fixed, Pre-established, And Given Line By Which He May Chart His Course, Only One Limit: The Past.
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May
The Assurance That We Have No Means Of Answering [final] Questions Is No Valid Excuse For Callousness Towards Them. The More Deeply Should We Feel, Down To The Roots Of Our Being, Their Pressure And Their Sting. Whose Hunger Has Ever Been [sated] With The Knowledge That He Could Not Eat?
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Roots
Finals
Biography - A System In Which The Contradictions Of A Human Life Are Unified.
Biographies
Contradiction
Human Life
Life Is The External Text, The Burning Bush By The Edge Of The Path From Which God Speaks.
Life
Inspire
Burning
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Motivation
Years
Giving
Tragedy In The Theater Opens Our Eyes So That We Can Discover And Appreciate The Heroic In Reality.
Eye
Reality
Appreciate
The Trend Towards Pure Art Betrays Not Arrogance, As Is Often Thought, But Modesty. Art That Has Rid Itself Of Human Pathos Is A Thing Without Consequence.
Art
Arrogance
Trends
The Essence Of Man Is, Discontent, Divine Discontent; A Sort Of Love Without A Beloved, The Ache We Feel In A Member We No Longer Have.
Love
Men
Essence
One Age Cannot Be Completely Understood If All The Others Are Not Understood. The Song Of History Can Only Be Sung As A Whole.
Song
History
Age
Every Life Is, More Or Less, A Ruin Among Whose Debris We Have To Discover What The Person Ought To Have Been.
Ruins
Life Is
Debris
Effort Is Only Effort When It Begins To Hurt.
Basketball
Art
Hurt
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Believe
Essence
Conviction
Whoever Has Not Felt The Danger Of Our Times Palpitating Under His Hand, Has Not Really Penetrated To The Vitals Of Destiny, He Has Merely Pricked The Surface.
Destiny
Hands
Danger
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Taken
Men
Rising Up
Man Adapts Himself To Everything, To The Best And The Worst.
Men
Adaptability
Worst
All Life Is The Struggle, The Effort To Be Itself.
Struggle
Effort
Life Is
Thought Is Not A Gift To Man But A Laborious, Precarious And Volatile Acquisition.
Men
Acquisition
Precarious
Today Violence Is The Rhetoric Of The Period.
Today
Violence
Periods
The Common Man, Finding Himself In A World So Excellent, Technically And Socially, Believes It Has Been Produced By Nature, And Never Thinks Of The Personal Efforts Of Highly Endowed Individuals Which The Creation Of This New World Presupposed. Still Less Will He Admit The Notion That All These Facilities Still Require The Support Of Certain Difficult Human Virtues, The Least Failure Of Which Would Cause The Rapid Disappearance Of The Whole Magnificent Edifice.
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Men
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Whether He Be An Original Or A Plagiarist, Man Is The Novelist Of Himself.
Men
Novelists
Originals
The Metaphor Is Probably The Most Fertile Power Possessed By Man
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Men
Metaphor
We Distinguish The Excellent Man From The Common Man By Saying That The Former Is The One Who Makes Great Demands On Himself, And The Latter Who Makes No Demands On Himself.
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Success
Men
We Live At A Time When Man Believes Himself Fabulously Capable Of Creation, But He Does Not Know What To Create.
Success
Time
Believe
The Masses Think That Is Is Easy To Flee From Reality, When It Is The Most Difficult Thing In The World.
Reality
Thinking
World
[t]he Mass-man Sees In The State An Anonymous Power, And Feeling Himself, Like It, Anonymous, He Believes That The State Is Something Of His Own. Suppose That In The Public Life Of A Country Some Difficulty, Conflict, Or Problem Presents Itself, The Mass-man Will Tend To Demand That The State Intervene Immediately And Undertake A Solution Directly With Its Immense And Unassailable Resources. This Is The Gravest Danger That To-day Threatens Civilisation: State Intervention; The Absorption Of All Spontaneous Social Effort By The State.
Country
Believe
Men
Excellence Means When A Man Or Woman Asks Of Himself More Than Others Do.
Mean
Men
Excellence
Rancor Is An Outpouring Of A Feeling Of Inferiority.
Feelings
Inferiority
Rancor
The Cynic, A Parasite Of Civilization, Lives By Denying It, For The Very Reason That He Is Convinced That It Will Not Fail.
Civilization
Failing
Cynicism
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.
Fall
Reality
Speed
To Live Is To Feel Oneself Lost.
Lost
Feels
Oneself
Meditation On Any Theme, If Positive And Honest, Inevitably Separates Him Who Does The Meditating From The Opinion Prevailing Around Him, From That Which Can Be Called "public" Or "popular" Opinion.
Meditation
Doe
Opinion
The Metaphor Is Perhaps One Of Man's Most Fruitful Potentialities. Its Efficacy Verges On Magic, And It Seems A Tool For Creation Which God Forgot Inside One Of His Creatures When He Made Him.
Inspiring
Men
Inspire
Liberalism Is That Principle Of Political Rights, According To Which The Public Authority, In Spite Of Being All-powerful, Limits Itself And Attempts, Even At Ist Own Expense, To Leave Room In The State Over Which It Rules For Those To Live Who Neither Think Nor Feel As It Does, That Is To Say As Do The Stronger, The Majority.
Powerful
Thinking
Rights
We Cannot Put Off Living Until We Are Ready. The Most Salient Characteristic Of Life Is Its Urgency, 'here And Now' Without Any Possible Postponement. Life Is Fired At Us Point-blank.
Inspirational
Life
Motivation
The Good Is, Like Nature, An Immense Landscape In Which Man Advances Through Centuries Of Exploration.
Philosophical
Men
Landscape
What Makes A Nation Great Is Not Primarily Its Great Men, But The Stature Of Its Innumerable Mediocre Ones.
Men
Mediocre
Nations
Man Is A Fugitive From Nature.
Men
Hunting
Fugitive
Since Love Is The Most Delicate And Total Act Of A Soul, It Will Reflect The State And Nature Of The Soul.
Love
Soul
States
Life, Individual Or Collective, Personal Or Historic, Is The One Entity In The Universe Whose Substance Is Compact Of Danger, Of Adventure. It Is, In The Strict Sense Of The Word, Drama. The Primary, Radical Meaning Of Life Appears When It Is Employed In The Sense Not Of Biology, But Of Biography. For The Very Strong Reason That The Whole Of Biology Is Quite Definitely Only A Chapter In Certain Biographies, It Is What Biologists Do In The Portion Of Their Lives Open To Biography.
Strong
Drama
Adventure
Revolution Is Not The Uprising Against Preexisting Order, But The Setting Up Of A New Order Contradictory To The Traditional One
Order
Uprising
Revolution
The Tapestry Of History That Seems So Full Of Tragedy When Viewed From The Front Has Countless Comic Scenes Woven Into Its Reverse Side. In Truth, Tragedy And Comedy Are The Twin Masks Of History - Its Mass Appeal.
History
Tragedy
Woven
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Inspirational
Magic
Genius
In Our Rather Stupid Time, Hunting Is Belittled And Misunderstood, Many Refusing To See It For The Vital Vacation From The Human Condition That It Is, Or To Acknowledge That The Hunter Does Not Hunt In Order To Kill; On The Contrary, He Kills In Order To Have Hunted.
Stupid
Vacation
Hunting
To Wonder Is To Begin To Understand.
Wonder
This Fighting-shy Of Every Obligation Partly Explains The Phenomenon, Half Ridiculous, Half Disgraceful, Of The Setting-up In Our Days Of The Platform Of "youth" As Youth. ... In Comic Fashion People Call Themselves "young," Because They Have Heard That Youth Has More Rights Than Obligations, Since It Can Put Off The Fulfilment Of These Latter To The Greek Kalends Of Maturity. ...[t]he Astounding Thing At Present Is That These Take It As An Effective Right Precisely In Order To Claim For Themselves All Those Other Rights Which Only Belong To The Man Who Has Already Done Something.
Fashion
Fighting
Maturity
The Past Will Not Tell Us What We Ought To Do, But... What We Ought To Avoid.
Regret
Past
Ought
Love Is Exclusivity, Selection.
Love Is
Exclusivity
Selection
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Hunting
Men
Historical
I Am Free By Compulsion, Whether I Wish To Be Or Not.
Wish
Compulsion
To Rule Is Not So Much A Question Of The Heavy Hand As The Firm Seat.
Hands
Heavy
Firm
Every Intellectual Effort Sets Us Apart From The Commonplace, And Leads Us By Hidden And Difficult Paths To Secluded Spots Where We Find Ourselves Amid Unaccustomed Thoughts.
Effort
Intellectual
Path
The Hunter Is The Alert Man. But This Itself-life As Complete Alertness-is The Attitude In Which The Animal Exists In The Jungle.
Attitude
Animal
Men
We Fall In Love When Our Imagination Projects Nonexistent Perfection Upon Another Person. One Day, The Fantasy Evaporates And With It, Love Dies.
Sarcastic
Falling In Love
Valentine
The Truth Is That No Horizon Is Especially Interesting By Itself, By Virtue Of Its Peculiar Content, And That Any Horizon, Wide Or Narrow, Brilliant Or Dull, Varied Or Monotonous, May Possess An Interest Of Its Own Which Merely Requires A Vital Adjustment To Be Discovered.
Interesting
Peculiar
Horizon
What, By A Word Lacking Even In Grammar, Is Called Amorality, Is A Thing That Does Not Exist. If You Are Unwilling To Submit To Any Norm, You Have, Nolens Volens , To Submit To The Norm Of Denying All Morality, And This Is Not Amoral, But Immoral. It Is A Negative Morality Which Preserves The Empty Form Of The Other.
Negative
Doe
Morality
If The Human Intellect Functions, It Is Actually In Order To Solve The Problems Which The Man's Inner Destiny Sets It.
Wisdom
Destiny
Men
Strictly Speaking, The Mass, As A Psychological Fact, Can Be Defined Without Waiting For Individuals To Appear In Mass Formation. In The Presence Of One Individual We Can Decide Whether He Is "mass" Or Not. The Mass Is All That Which Sets No Value On Itself Good Or Ill Based On Specific Grounds, But Which Feels Itself "just Like Everybody," And Nevertheless Is Not Concerned About It; Is, In Fact, Quite Happy To Feel Itself As One With Everybody Else.
Waiting
Facts
Psychological
Thinking Is The Desire To Gain Reality By Means Of Ideas.
Mean
Reality
Thinking
There May Be As Much Nobility In Being Last As In Being First, Because The Two Positions Are Equally Necessary In The World, The One To Complement The Other.
Two
World
May
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Adversity
Men
Class
That Marxism Should Triumph In Russia, Where There Is No Industry, Would Be The Greatest Contradiction That Marxism Could Undergo. But There Is No Such Contradiction, For There Is No Such Triumph. Russia Is Marxist More Or Less As The Germans Of The Holy Roman Empire Were Romans.
Russia
Triumph
Would Be
The Preoccupation With What Should Be Is Estimable Only When The Respect For What Is Has Been Exhausted.
Exhausted
Preoccupation
Should
Why Write If This Too Easy Activity Of Pushing A Pen Across Paper Is Not Given A Certain Bullfighting Risk And We Do Not Approach Dangerous, Agile And Two-horned Topics?
Writing
Two
Risk
The Poet Begins Where The Man Ends. The Man's Lot Is To Live His Human Life, The Poet's To Invent What Is Nonexistent.
Men
Poet
Ends
He Who Wishes To Teach Us A Truth Should Not Tell It To Us, But Simply Suggest It With A Brief Gesture, A Gesture Which Starts An Ideal Trajectory In The Air Along Which We Glide Until We Find Ourselves At The Feet Of The New Truth.
Truth
Honesty
Teaching
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Giving Up
Use
Way
To Write Well Consists Of Continuously Making Small Erosions, Wearing Away Grammar In Its Established Form, Current Norms Of Language. It Is An Act Of Permanent Rebellion And Subversion Against Social Environs.
Writing
Erosion
Language
To Be Free Means To Be Lacking In Constitutive Identity...
Mean
Identity
Lacking
Man's Being Is Made Of Such Strange Stuff As To Be Partly Akin To Nature And Partly Not, At Once Natural And Extranatural, A Kind Of Ontological Centaur, Half Immersed In Nature, Half Transcending It.
Men
Centaurs
Half
The History Of The Roman Empire Is Also The History Of The Uprising Of The Empire Of The Masses, Who Absorb And Annul The Directing Minorities And Put Themselves In Their Place. Then, Also, Is Produced The Phenomenon Of Agglomeration, Of "the Full." For That Reason, As Spengler Has Very Well Observed, It Was Necessary, Just As In Our Day, To Construct Enormous Buildings. The Epoch Of The Masses Is The Epoch Of The Colossal.
Uprising
Minorities
Empires
This Is The Gravest Danger That Today Threatens Civilization: State Intervention; The Absorption Of All Spontaneous Social Effort By The State, That Is To Say, Of Spontaneous Historical Action, Which In The Long Run Sustains, Nourishes, And Impels Human Destinies.
Running
Destiny
Civilization
I Am I Plus My Surroundings; And If I Do Not Preserve The Latter, I Do Not Preserve Myself.
Land
Stewardship
Environment
I Think That The Philosopher Must, For His Own Purposes, Carry Methodological Strictness To An Extreme When He Is Investigating And Pursuing His Truths, But When He Is Ready To Enunciate Them And Give Them Out, He Ought To Avoid The Cynical Skill With Which Some Scientists, Like A Hercules At The Fair, Amuse Themselves By Displaying To The Public The Biceps Of Their Technique.
Thinking
Skills
Giving
We Need To Study The Whole Of History, Not To Fall Back Into It, But To See If We Can Escape From It.
Fall
History
Needs
Man Has To Live With The Body And Soul Which Have Fallen To Him By Chance.
Acceptance
Men
Soul
Civilization Is Nothing Else But The Attempt To Reduce Force To Being The Last Resort.
Civilization
Lasts
Resorts
There Is No Doubt; Even A Rejection Can Be The Shadow Of A Caress”.
Rejection
Doubt
Shadow
Order Is Not Pressure Which Is Imposed On Society From Without, But An Equilibrium Which Is Set Up From Within.
Government
Order
Pressure
An Idea Is A Putting Truth In Check-mate.
Truth
Lying
Ideas
Stupefaction, When It Persists, Becomes Stupidity.
Stupidity
Surprise
Persist
The Type Of Human Being We Prefer Reveals The Contours Of Our Heart.
Heart
Emotional
Type
With Morality We Correct The Mistakes Of Our Instincts, And With Love We Correct The Mistakes Of Our Morals.
Mistake
Morality
Moral
Beliefs 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.
Lying
Thinking
Issues
The Hero's Will Is Not That Of His Ancestors Nor Of His Society, But His Own. This Will To Be Oneself Is Heroism.
Hero
Society
Ancestor
In Their Choice Of Lovers Both The Male And The Female Reveal Their Essential Nature. The Type Of Human Being We Prefer Reveals The Contours Of Our Heart. Love Is An Impulse Which Springs From The Most Profound Depths Of Our Beings, And Upon Reaching The Visible Surface Of Life Carries With It An Alluvium Of Shells And Seaweed From The Inner Abyss. A Skilled Naturalist, By Filing These Materials, Can Reconstruct The Oceanic Depths From Which They Have Been Uprooted.
Spring
Heart
Love Is
Our Firmest Convictions Are Apt To Be The Most Suspect; They Mark Our Limitations And Our Bounds. Life Is A Petty Thing Unless It Is Moved By The Indomitable Urge To Extend Its Boundaries.
Life Is
Fame
Boundaries
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.
Religious
Men
Hunting
I Am I Plus My Circumstances.
Plus
Circumstances
Man Is A Substantial Emigrant On A Pilgrimage Of Being, And It Is Accordingly Meaningless To Set Limits To What He Is Capable Of Being.
Men
Limits
Pilgrimage
The Struggle With The Past Is Not A Hand-to-hand Fight. The Future Overcomes It By Swallowing It. If It Leaves Anything Outside It Is Lost.
Struggle
Fighting
Past
[i]t Is Necessary To Insist Upon This Extraordinary But Undeniable Fact: Experimental Science Has Progressed Thanks In Great Part To The Work Of Men Astoundingly Mediocre, And Even Less Than Mediocre. That Is To Say, Modern Science, The Root And Symbol Of Our Actual Civilization, Finds A Place For The Intellectually Commonplace Man And Allows Him To Work Therein With Success.
Men
Civilization
Roots
Liberalism... Is The Noblest Cry That Has Ever Resounded In This Planet.
Cry
Planets
Liberalism
The Heart Of Man Does Not Tolerate An Absence Of The Excellent And Supreme.
Heart
Men
Doe
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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