"To-day the [Enlightenment] ideal has been changed into a reality; not only in legislation, which is the mere framework of public life, but in the heart of every individual, whatever his ideas may be, and even if he be a reactionary in his ideas, that is to say, even when he attacks and castigates institutions by which those rights are sanctioned.… The sovereignty of the unqualified individual, of the human being as such, generically, has now passed from being a juridical idea or ideal to be a psychological state inherent in the average man. And note this, that when what was before an ideal becomes a component part of reality, it inevitably ceases to be an ideal. The prestige and the magic that are attributes of the ideal are volatilised."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chap.II: The Rise Of The Historic Level
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."
"When all these things are lacking there is no culture; there is in the strictest sense of the word, barbarism. And le…"
"The physical change in the thickness of walls since the Middle Ages could be shown in a diagram. In the fourteenth ce…"
"Life is fired at us point blank."