“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.”

— José Ortega Y Gasset

“Man has no nature”
History as a System (1962)

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José Ortega Y Gasset 85

Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist 1883–1955

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L. P. Jacks (1860–1955) British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister

The Usurpation Of Language (1910)
Context: Philosophy has been called the search for the Permanent amid the changing. With this account of philosophy there is no need to quarrel. But having accepted it, a distinction remains to be observed, a distinction of capital importance, which we are in constant danger of forgetting. It is one thing to find the Permanent; it is another thing to find a form of words in which the Permanent shall stand permanently expressed. It is one thing to experience something fixed and changeless; it is another thing to fix this something by a changeless definition. The first may be possible, while the second remains impossible for ever.

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Source: Meditations

“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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José Ortega Y Gasset 85

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