"The physical change in the thickness of walls since the Middle Ages could be shown in a diagram. In the fourteenth century each house was a fortress. Man spent the major portion of his day in them, in secret and well-defended solitude. That solitude, working on the soul hour after hour, forged it, like a transcendent blacksmith, into a compact and forceful character. Under its treatment, man consolidated his individual destiny and sallied forth with impunity, never yielding to the contamination from the public. It is only in isolation that we gain, almost automatically, a certain discrimination in ideas, desires, longings, that we learn which are ours, and which are anonymous, floating in the air, falling on us like dust in the street."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 168
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_y_Gasset
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
José Ortega y Gasset
86 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by José Ortega y Gasset →
Related Quotes
"The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and sel…"
"The mass is all that which sets no value on itself—good or ill—based on specific grounds, but which feels itself “jus…"
"A characteristic of our times is the predominance, even in groups traditionally selective, of the mass and the vulgar…"
"That man is intellectually of the mass who, in the face of any problem, is satisfied with thinking the first thing he…"
"The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatur…"
"When shall we open our minds to the conviction that the ultimate reality of the world is neither matter nor spirit, i…"
"Yo soy yo y mi circumstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo."
"Similarly a work of art vanishes from sight for a beholder who seeks in it nothing but the moving fate of John and Ma…"
"Now, apparently, many men are again feeling homesick for the herd. They devote themselves passionately to whatever th…"
"Life is fired at us point blank."