"A man of action is likely to be a poor thinker, if a thinker at all, while the ideal of the sage, the stoic for instance, is to live detached and to keep his soul motionless like a still lake which impassively mirrors the fleeting skies."
— Ortega y Gasset, José (1883-1955)
Place of Publication
Madrid
Date
1925
Metaphor
"A man of action is likely to be a poor thinker, if a thinker at all, while the ideal of the sage, the stoic for instance, is to live detached and to keep his soul motionless like a still lake which impassively mirrors the fleeting skies."
Metaphor in Context
Contemplation and interest thus appear to be two polar forms of consciousness which in principle exclude one another. A man of action is likely to be a poor thinker, if a thinker at all, while the ideal of the sage, the stoic for instance, is to live detached and to keep his soul motionless like a still lake which impassively mirrors the fleeting skies.
(in Mckeon, p. 305)
(in Mckeon, p. 305)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Reading The Theory of the Novel, ed. Michael McKeon (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 2000).
See José Ortega y Gasset, La deshumanización del arte e Ideas sobre la novela (Madrid, 1925).
McKeon reprints, with permission, "Notes on the Novel," from The Dehumanization of Art and Notes on the Novel, trans. Helene Weyl (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1948), 57-103.
See José Ortega y Gasset, La deshumanización del arte e Ideas sobre la novela (Madrid, 1925).
McKeon reprints, with permission, "Notes on the Novel," from The Dehumanization of Art and Notes on the Novel, trans. Helene Weyl (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1948), 57-103.
Date of Entry
04/22/2016
