Life cannot wait until the sciences may have explained the universe scientifically. We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, “here and now” without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank. And culture, which is but its interpretation, cannot wait any more than can life itself.
José Ortega y Gasset, Mission of the University [Misión de la Universidad (1930; translation © 1944, first published 1946), p. 73, translated by Howard Lee Nostrand.
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Ortega y Gasset
