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Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental.

— José Ortega y Gasset The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

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More quotes by José Ortega y Gasset

Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights.

The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

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 Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel (1925)

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.

History as a System (1962)

Nationalism is always an effort in a direction opposite to that of the principle which creates nations. The former is exclusive in tendency, the latter inclusive.

The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

The form most contradictory to human life that can appear among the human species is the "self-satisfied man."

The Revolt of the Masses (1929)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: José Ortega y Gasset (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.