Thursday, November 25

Wedding of reality with the demon of what is impossible

 "World history compels us to recognize Man's continuous, inexhaustible capacity to invent unrealizable projects. In the effort to realize them, he achieves many things, he creates innumerable realities that so-called Nature is incapable of producing for itself. The only thing that Man does not achieve is, precisely, what he he proposes to - let it be said to his credit. This wedding of reality with the demon of what is impossible supplies the universe with the only growth that it is capable of. For that reason, it is very important to emphasize that everything - that is, everything, worthwhile, everything truly human - is difficult, very difficult; so much so, that it is impossible."

José Ortega y Gasset, in The Misery and the Splendor of Translation

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