Best 28 quotes of Nicolas Gomez Davila on MyQuotes

Being right is one more good reason for not succeeding

Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal.

History clearly demonstrates that governing is a task that exceeds man's ability.

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.

Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon.

Nowadays public opinion is not the sum of private opinions. On the contrary, private opinions are an echo of public opinion

Revolutions are frightening, but election campaigns are disgusting.

The Church used to absolve sinners; today it has the gall to absolve sins.

The fool is disturbed not when they tell him that his ideas are false, but when they suggest that they have gone out of style.

The genuine coherence of our ideas does not come from the reasoning that ties them together, but from the spiritual impulse that gives rise to them.

The unbeliever imagines that religion pretends to offer answers, while the believer knows that the only promise it makes is to multiply questions.

Total freedom of expression does not compensate for lack of talent.

Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.

An irreligious society cannot endure the truth of the human condition. It prefers a lie, no matter how idiotic it may be.

Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems.

Faith is not knowledge of an object but communion with it.

Ideas tyrannize the man who has but few.

It is impossible to convince the fool that there are pleasures superior to those we share with the rest of the animals.

Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear conscience.

The anarchy that threatens a degrading society is not its punishment, but its remedy.

The greatest modern error is not to proclaim that God died, but to believe that the devil has died.

The particular creature we love is never God’s rival. What ends in apostasy is the worship of man, the cult of humanity.

The philosopher is not the spokesman of his age, but an angel imprisoned in time.

The three hypostasis of egoism are: individualism, nationalism, collectivism. The democratic trinity.

The two terms of the democratic alternative today—oppressive bureaucracy or repugnant plutocracy—are canceling each other out. Combining into a single term: opulent bureaucracy. At once repugnant and oppressive.

To be right is just one more reason not to achieve any success.

To demand that the intelligence abstain from judging mutilates its faculty of understanding. It is in the value judgment that understanding culminates.

To write for posterity* is not to worry whether they will read us tomorrow. It is to aspire to a certain quality of writing. Even when no one reads us. *Posterity is not the whole of future generations. It is a small group of men with taste, a proper upbringing, and erudition, in each generation.