Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was born in the medieval centre of Bilbao, Basque Country, the son of Félix de Unamuno and Salomé Jugo. As a young man, he was interested in the Basque language, and competed for a teaching position in the Instituto de Bilbao, against Sabino Arana. The contest was finally won by the Basque scholar Resurrección María de Azcue.
Unamuno worked in all major genres: the essay, the novel, poetry and theatre, and, as a modernist, contributed greatly to dissolving the boundaries between genres. There is some debate as to whether Unamuno was in fact a member of the Generation of '98 (an ex post facto literary group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers that was the creation of José Martínez Ruiz — a group that includes Antonio Machado, Azorín, Pío Baroja, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu and Ángel Ganivet, among others).
In addition to his writing, Unamuno played an important role in the intellectual life of Spain. He served as rector of the University of Salamanca for two periods: from 1900 to 1924 and 1930 to 1936, during a time of great social and political upheaval. Unamuno was removed from his post by the government in 1924, to the protest of other Spanish intellectuals. He lived in exile until 1930, first banned to Fuerteventura (Canary Islands), from where he escaped to France. Unamuno returned after the fall of General Primo de Rivera's dictatorship and took up his rectorship again. It is said in Salamanca that the day he returned to the University, Unamuno began his lecture by saying "As we were saying yesterday, ...", as Fray Luis de León had done in the same place four centuries before, as though he had not been absent at all. After the fall of Rivera's dictatorship, Spain embarked on its second Republic, a short-lived attempt by the people of Spain to take democratic control of their own country. He was a candidate for the small intellectual party Al Servicio de la República.
The burgeoning Republic was eventually squashed when a military coup headed by General Francisco Franco caused the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Having begun his literary career as an internationalist, Unamuno gradually became a convinced Spanish nationalist, feeling that Spain's essential qualities would be destroyed if influenced too much by outside forces. Thus for a brief period he actually welcomed Franco's revolt as necessary to rescue Spain from radical influence. However, the harsh tactics employed by the Francoists in the struggle against their republican opponents caused him to oppose both the Republic and Franco.
As a result of his opposition to Franco, Unamuno was effectively removed for a second time from his University post. Also, in 1936 Unamuno had a brief public quarrel with the Nationalist general Millán Astray at the University in which he denounced both Astray and elements of the Francoist movement. He called the battle cry of the rightist Falange movement—"Long live death!"—repellent and suggested Astray wanted to see Spain crippled. One historian notes that his address was a "remarkable act of moral courage" and that he risked being lynched on the spot. Shortly afterwards, he was placed under house arrest, where he remained, broken-hearted, until his death ten weeks later.[1]
“La verdad? La verdad [...] es acaso algo terrible, algo intolerable, algo mortal; la gente sencilla no podría vivir con ella.”
“¡Hay que vivir! Y él me enseñó a vivir, él nos enseñó a vivir, a sentir la vida, a sentir el sentido de la vida, a sumergirnos en el alma de la montaña, en el alma del lago, en el alma del pueblo de la aldea, a perdernos en ellas para quedar en ellas.”
“Todas las religiones son verdaderas en cuanto hacen vivir espiritualmente a los pueblos que las profesan”
“Our life is a hope which is continually converting itself into memory and memory in its turn begets hope.”
“The truth is that reason is the enemy of life.”
“Me gusta esta costumbre de la rúbrica por lo inútil”
“Los vagos son ellos, los que dicen que trabajan y no hacen sino aturdirse y ahogar el pensamiento".”
“A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what they're talking about.”
“¡Dios no os de paz y si gloria!”
“Dintre oameni, cel mai mare este poetul, un poet liric, adica un adevarat poet. Un poet este un om care nu pastreaza in inima sa secrete pentru Dumnezeu si care, cantandu'si aleanul, nadejdile si amintirile, le curata de coaja si le limpezeste de toata minciuna. Cantarile sale sunt cantarile tale si ale mele”
“Because Augustus was not a hiker, but a walker of life”
“Sometimes, to remain silent is to lie, since silence can be interpreted as assent.”
“The chiefest sanctity of a temple is that it is a place to which men go to weep in common.”
“Men shout to avoid listening to one another.”
“If it is nothingness that awaits us, let us make an injustice of it, let us fight against destiny, even without hope of victory.”
“Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. -Miguel de Unamuno, philosopher and writer (1864-1936)”
“Sometimes to be silent is to lie.”
“The less we read, the more harmful it is what we read.”
“Casi el único valor de las grandes obras maestras del ingenio humano consiste en haber provocado un libro de crítica o de comentario.”
“Hasta que se llora de veras no se sabe si se tiene o no alma.”
“Cásate con la mujer que te quiera, aunque no la quieras tú. Es mejor casarte para que le conquisten a uno el amor que para conquistarlo.”
“El amor precede al conocimiento, y éste mata a aquél.”
“¿Y qué es amor? ¿Quién definió el amor? Amor definido deja de serlo...”
“Beneath the current of our existence and within it, there is another current flowing in the opposite direction. In this life we go from yesterday to tomorrow, but there we go from tomorrow to yesterday. The web of life is being woven and unraveled at the same time. And from time to time we get breaths and vapors and even mysterious murmurs from that other world, from that interior of our own world. The inner heart of history is a counter-history; it is a process which inverts the course of history. The subterranean river flows from the sea and back to its source.”
“It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.”
“Those faults we do not have, do not bother us.”
“Man is perishing. That may be, and if it is nothingness that awaits us let us so act that it will be an unjust fate.”
“If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.”
“Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself.”
“Quando um homem adormecido e inerte na cama sonha algo, o que é que existe mais, ele como consciência que sonha, ou o seu sonho?”
“And usually [the philosopher] philosophizes either in order to resign himself to life, or to seek some finality in it, or to distract himself and forget his griefs, or for pastime and amusement.”
“„Да обичаш значи да изпитваш болка, и ако телата се свързват чрез насладата, душите се свързват чрез болката.”
“No os quepais en el cerebro lo que os puede caber en el bolsillo. Y al contrario, ¡no os quepais en el bolsillo lo que os puede caber en el cerebro!”
“My aim is to agitate and disturb people. I'm not selling bread; I'm selling yeast.”
“And killing time is perhaps the essence of comedy, just as the essence of tragedy is killing eternity.”
“Consciousness (conscientia) is participated knowledge, is co-feeling, and co-feeling is com-passion. Love personalizes all that it loves. Only by personalizing it can we fall in love with an idea. And when love is so great and so vital, so strong and so overflowing, that it loves everything, then it personalizes everything and discovers that the total All, that the Universe, is also a person possessing a Consciousness, a Consciousness which in its turn suffers, pities, and loves, and therefore is consciousness. And this Consciousness of the Universe, which a love, personalizing all that it loves, discovers, is what we call God.”
“To say that everything is idea or that everything is spirit, is the same as saying that everything is matter or that everything is energy, for if everything is idea or spirit, just as my consciousness is, it is not plain why the diamond should not endure for ever, if my consciousness, because it is idea or spirit, endures forever.”
“The vanity of the passing world and love are the two fundamental and heart-penetrating notes of true poetry. And they are two notes of which neither can be sounded without causing the other to vibrate. The feeling of the vanity of the passing world kindles love in us, the only thing that triumphs over the vain and transitory, the only thing that fills life again and eternalizes it.”
“Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly — but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the second degree.”
“Yes, yes, I see it all! — an enormous social activity, a mighty civilization, a profuseness of science, of art, of industry, of morality, and afterwords, when we have filled the world with industrial marvels, with great factories, with roads, museums and libraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will subsist — for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man?”
“We men do nothing but lie and make ourselves important. Speech was invented for the purpose of magnifying all of our sensations and impressions — perhaps so that we could believe in them.”
“- ¿Pero ahora se le ocurre comprar perro, señorito?- No lo he comprado, Domingo; este perro no es esclavo, sino que es libre; lo he encontrado.- Vamos, si, es expósito.- Todos somos expósitos, Domingo”
“«Se desço ao meu coração, encontro cinzas e uma lareira extinta. O vulcão cumpriu seu incêndio e dele apenas restam o calor e a lava que se agitam à superfície, e, quando tudo se houver gelado e as coisas se houverem cumprido, nada mais restará - uma indefínivel lembrança como que de algo que pudesse ter sido e que não foi - a lembrança dos meios que deveriam ter sido empregues para a felicidade e que se deixaram perdidos na inércia dos desejõs titânicos escorraçados de dentro de nós, sem que tão-pouco tivessem podido chegar cá fora, que minaram a alma de esperanças, de ansiedades, de votos sem fruto... e depois nada», Mazzini era um desterrado, um desterrado da eternidade.”
“Serenado um pouco, abriu o livro e retomou a leitura. Esqueceu-se de si próprio por completo e bem podia então dizer que morrera. Sonhava no outro, ou melhor, o outro era um sonho que nele se sonhava, uma criatura da sua infinita solidão. Até que despertou com uma terrível pontada no peito. A personagem do livro acabara de lhe dizer de novo: «Devo repetir ao leitor que comigo morrerá.». E desta vez o efeito foi espantoso. O trágico leitor perdeu o conhecimento naquele seu leito de sofrimento espiritual; deixou de sonhar no outro e deixou de sonhar-se a si mesmo. E quando voltou a si, lançou fora o livro, apagou a luz e procurou adormecer, deixar de sonhar. Impossível! De quando em quando tinha de levantar-se para beber água; ocorreu-lhe que bebia no Sena, no espelho. «Estarei louco? - repetia -. Certamente que não, porque quando uma pessoa se pergunta se está louca é porque não está...». Levantou-se, pegou-lhe o fogo na lareira e queimou o livro, voltando em seguida a deitar-se. E conseguiu finalmente adormecer.”
“Porque sua mulher vivia com o coração na mão e estendia este como oferta para o ar do mundo, entregue por completo ao momento presente, como vivem as rosas do campo e as rolas dos céus.”
“Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.”
“Não tenho medo das palavras, mas calo-me.”
“Quase todos os homens vivem inconscientemente no tédio. O tédio é o fundo da vida, foi o tédio que inventou os jogos, as distracções, os romances e o amor.”
“At times to be silent is to lie. You will win because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to convince you need to persuade. And in order to persuade you would need what you lack: Reason and Right”
“Piensa el sentimiento, siente el pensamiento." (roughly translated, "Think about the emotional and feel the intellectual")”