Nicolás Gómez Dávila Quotes

“Truths are not relative. What is relative are opinions about truth.”

“In general, "historical necessity" turns out to be merely a name for human stupidity.”

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

“The left claims that the guilty party in a conflict is not the one who covets another’s goods but the one who defends his own.”

“If philosophy does not resolve any scientific problem, science, in its turn, does not resolve any philosophical problem.”

“Poetry is the fingerprint of God in human clay.”

“With God there are only individuals.”

“The difference between "organic" and "mechanical" in social matters is a moral one: the "organic" is the result of innumerable humble acts; the "mechanical" is the result of one decisive act of arrogance.”

“To tolerate does not mean to forget that what we tolerate does not deserve anything more.”

“The modernist thirst for originality makes the mediocre artist believe that the secret of originality consists simply in being different.”

“The criterion of "progress" between two cultures or two eras consists of a greater capacity to kill.”

“Clarity of text is the sole incontrovertible sign of the maturity of an idea.”

“The word "modern" no longer has an automatic prestige except among fools.”

“"Taste is relative" is the excuse adopted by those eras that have bad taste.”

“The modernist object does not possess inner life; only internal conflicts.”

“The supreme aristocrat is not the feudal lord in his castle but the contemplative monk in his cell.”

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