In this initial illimitableness of possibilities that characterizes one who has no nature there stands out only one fixed, pre-established, and given line by which he may chart his course, only one limit: the past. (José Ortega y Gasset)

In this initial illimitableness of possibilities that characterizes one who has no nature there stands out only one fixed, pre-established, and given line by which he may chart his course, only one limit: the past.

José Ortega y Gasset

Related topics

chart course given initial limit line nature past illimitableness

Related quotes

We face the future with our past and our present as guarantors of our promises; and we are content to stand or to fall by the record which we have made and are making.

Theodore Roosevelt

Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythms, by effort that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.

Henri Matisse

Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy; mercy as shown chiefly towards the poor, that thou mayest treat them as sharers in common with thee in the produce of nature, which brings forth the fruits of the earth for use to all.

Ambrose

A person cannot choose the time in which he is born or lives; it is not up to him, who his parents are, or the nation he will be born into, but what he is responsible for is how he will act in that given time: will he be human or inhuman.

Pavle (Serbian)