, Biscay
, Basque Country
, Spain
– 31 December 1936, Salamanca
, Salamanca, Castile and León
, Spain) was a Spanish essay
ist, novel
ist, poet
, playwright
and philosopher.
Miguel de Unamuno was born in Bilbao, a port city of Spain, 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 Azkue
.
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.
The devil is an angel too.
There are pretenses which are very sincere, and marriage is their school.
Use harms and even destroys beauty. The noblest function of an object is to be contemplated.
Whenever a man talks he lies, and so far as he talks to himself — that is to say, so far as he thinks, knowing that he thinks — he lies to himself. The only truth in human life is that which is physiological. Speech — this thing that they call a social product — was made for lying.
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.
Isolation is the worst possible counselor.
Every peasant has a lawyer inside of him, just as every lawyer, no matter how urbane he may be, carries a peasant within himself.
It is sad not to be loved, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.
These terrible sociologists, who are the astrologers and alchemists of our twentieth century.