Sir Jose Ortega y Gassett - Spanish philosopher,

For there is no doubt that the most radical division that it is
possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes
of creatures: those who make great demands on themselves, piling up
difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of
themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they
already are, without imposing on themselves any effort towards
perfection; mere buoys that float on the waves.

Surprising condition, this, of our existence! To live is to feel
ourselves fatally obliged to exercise our liberty, to decide what we
are going to be in this world. Not for a single moment is our activity
of decision allowed to rest. Even when in desperation we abandon
ourselves to whatever may happen, we have decided not to decide.

In the disturbances caused by scarcity of food, the mob goes in search
of bread, and the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries.
This may serve as a symbol of the attitude adopted, on a greater and
more complicated scale, by the masses of to-day towards the
civilisation by which they are supported.

That man is intellectually of the mass who, in face of any problem, is
satisfied with thinking the first thing he finds in his head. On the
contrary, the excellent man is he who contemns what he finds in his
mind without previous effort, and only accepts as worthy of him what
is still far above him and what requires a further effort in order to
be reached.

As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority
of men- and of women- are incapable of any other effort than that
strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for
that reason, the few individuals we have come across who are capable
of a spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised,
so to speak, in our experience. These are the select men, the nobles,
the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is
a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training =
askesis. These are the ascetics.