Nicolás Gómez Dávila > Quotes

“In an age in which the media broadcast countless pieces of foolishness, the educated man is defined not by what he knows, but by what he doesn't know.”
― Nicolas Gomez Davila

“Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Swimming against the current is not idiotic if the waters are racing toward a waterfall.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“Dying societies accumulate laws like dying men accumulate remedies.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from
indifference toward the unique values which created it.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a Un Texto Implicito: Obra Completa

“I distrust every idea that doesn’t seem obsolete and grotesque to my contemporaries.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Liberty is not an end, but a means. Whoever mistakes it for an end does not know what to do once he attains it.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Notas: Unzeitgemäße Gedanken

“Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“The anarchy that threatens a degrading society is not its punishment, but its remedy.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“In a century where the media publish endless stupidities, the cultured man is defined not by what he knows but by what he ignores.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear conscience.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Conformism and non-conformism are symmetrical expressions of a lack of originality.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a Un Texto Implicito: Obra Completa

“Poetry rescues things by reconciling matter and spirit in the metaphor.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“The taste of the masses is characterized not by their antipathy to the excellent, but by the passivity with which they enjoy equally the good, the mediocre, and the bad.
The masses do not have bad taste. They simply do not have taste.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Don Colacho's Aphorisms

“When nothing in society deserves respect, we should fashion for ourselves in solitude new silent loyalties.”
― Nicólas Gómez Dávila

“Relativism is the solution of one who is incapable of putting things in order.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Modern man does not love, but seeks refuge in love; does not hope, but seeks refuge in hope; does not believe, but seeks refuge in a dogma.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a Un Texto Implicito: Obra Completa

“Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“Faith is not knowledge of an object but communion with it.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“The freer man believes he is, the easier it is to indoctrinate him.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Scholia to an Implicit Text

“Modern history is the dialogue between two men: one who believes in God, another who believes he is a god.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition.
It prefers a lie, no matter how idiotic it may be.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“The philosopher is not the spokesman of his age, but an angel imprisoned in time.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“There is an illiteracy of the soul which no diploma cures.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“The cultured man has the obligation to be intolerant.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a un texto implícito: Tomo II

“To live with lucidity a simple, quiet, discreet life among intelligent books, loving a few beings.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Revolution is progressive and seeks the strengthening of the state; rebellion is reactionary and seeks its disappearance.

The revolutionary is a potential government official; the rebel is a reactionary in action.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila

“Progress ages badly.
Each generation brings a new model of progressivism which discards with contempt the previous model.
Nothing is more grotesque than yesterday’s progressive.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección

“Rather than humanizing technology, modern man prefers to technify man.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Escolios a una texto implícito: Selección