“Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas.”

— José Ortega Y Gasset

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas." by José Ortega Y Gasset?

José Ortega Y Gasset 85

Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist 1883–1955

Related quotes

“There is no greater mystery than this: being Reality ourselves, we seek to gain Reality.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

“Any idea is a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize something means to think it.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Elements of the Philosophy of Right

Jede Vorstellung ist eine Verallgemeinerung, und diese gehört dem Denken an. Etwas allgemein machen, heißt, es denken.
"Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse", Berlin, 1833, p. 35
"Every representation is a generalization, and this is inherent in thought. To generalize something means to think it."
"Any idea is a universalization, and universalizing is a property of thinking. To universalize something means to think."
"An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think."
Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820/1821)

“Turning to God, Truth, Reality, simply means to let go, even fearfully at first, of our self-centered ideas.”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle

“I’m sure you have seen people in life who are so desirous of gaining attention that if they cannot have and gain attention through normal channels, through normal social channels, they will gain it through anti-social means. […] They are so selfcentered that they must gain attention and they must be seen in order to survive. They want to be admired and in their quest for admiration, they don’t gain it and in their failure to gain it, they become frustrated and bewildered and disillusioned. Also, it leads to extreme sensitiveness.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)

“Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.”

Edward Sapir (1884–1939) American linguist and anthropologist

As cited in: Geza Revesz, The Origins and Prehistory of Language, London 1956. footnote pp. 126-127; As cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 313-314
Language (1921)

“There also exists a constant tension between ideas and realities. Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out. There has to be continuous dialogue between the two, lest ideas become detached from realities. It is dangerous to dwell in the realm of words alone, of images and rhetoric. So a third principle comes into play: realities are greater than ideas. This calls for rejecting the various means of masking reality: angelic forms of purity, dictatorships of relativism, empty rhetoric, objectives more ideal than real, brands of ahistorical fundamentalism, ethical systems bereft of kindness, intellectual discourse bereft of wisdom.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 231
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

“The power of thought and will transform desire into reality.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La forza del pensiero e di volontà trasforma il desiderio in realtà.
Source: prevale.net

“Life in the world functions by ego, attachment and desire, which gives the rise to the idea of “likes” and “dislikes”. In this way the mind starts identifying all experiences in the world in terms of opposites, such as pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Ch. I-VI, 2013
Context: In this verse Lord Krishna advises Arjuna how to fight the battle he is trying to avoid. Life in the world functions by ego, attachment and desire, which gives the rise to the idea of “likes” and “dislikes”. In this way the mind starts identifying all experiences in the world in terms of opposites, such as pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat... Here, Sri Krishna is saying that if Arjuna has neither desire for heaven nor for sovereignty over the earth, then he should achieve equanimity of the mind. With equanimity of the mind one can achieve success in the war of life. Without it, one cannot remain unaffected by the pairs of opposites and will be continually tossed about by the waves of egocentric likes and dislikes.

“This idea of working just to make money or setting up in business just as a means to a livelihood is all wrong…It seems to me absolutely necessary, and in reality a joy, that a young man starting out in the world should be imbued with a desire to benefit mankind and society by his work and service - whether that be in the field of business, law, or something else.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his parents (January 13, 1939)

“Is there any difference between our desires becoming reality, and our desiring what is already real? What matters is that our will and reality agree with one another.”

Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914–1999) Argentine novelist

"¿No es lo mismo que suceda lo que deseamos, que desear lo que suceda? Lo que importa es que nuestra voluntad y los sucesos estén de acuerdo."
La otra aventura, 1968.

“Thinking is the desire to gain reality by means of ideas.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

José Ortega Y Gasset 85

Related quotes

Related topics