Jose Ortega y Gasset Civilization Quotations

[I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success.

This is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention; the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State, that is to say, of spontaneous historical action, which in the long run sustains, nourishes, and impels human destinies.

Civilization is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort.

The cynic, a parasite of civilization, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail.

Civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort.