/lit/ - Literature

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>>22986896
>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>>22293742
>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>>22139865
>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>>20321251
Ortega y Gasset's book is fantastic, it's just not terrifically translated from the Spanish.

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>>18898032
You've been brainwashed to see no distinction between serving an objective good that deserves to be served, and being "enslaved" by something. You've been taught that the only way a human can be free or happy is by being an animal with no obligations and duties, no higher calling.

>As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.

>>18040883
>The mass-man would never have accepted authority external to himself had not his surroundings violently forced him to do so. As today his surroundings do not so force him, the eternal mass-man, true to his character, ceases to appeal to any authority other than himself, and feels himself lord of his own existence. Conversely the select man, the excellent man is urged by interior necessity to appeal to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, into whose service he freely enters. ... Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendent. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is life lived as a discipline — the noble life.

>Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to order and law" (Goethe). The privileges of nobility are not in their origin concessions or favours; on the contrary, they are conquests. And their maintenance supposes, in principle, that the privileged individual is capable of reconquering them, at any moment, if it were necessary, and if anyone were to dispute them. ... It is annoying to see the degeneration suffered in today's speech by a word so inspiring as "nobility." For, by coming to mean for many people hereditary "noble blood," it is changed into something similar to common rights, into a static, passive quality which is received and transmitted, something inert. But the strict sense, the etymon of the word nobility, is essentially dynamic. Noble means the "well known," that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass. ... "Nobility" does not appear as a formal expression until the Roman Empire, and then precisely in opposition to the hereditary nobles, then in decadence.

>As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men — and of women — are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, those few individuals we come across who are capable of spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.