Quotes from Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Feudal anarchy" is the word which democratic terrorism uses to slander the only period of tangible freedom known to us.

As they cannot be defined univocally, nor irrefutably demonstrated, so-called "human rights" serve as a pretext for the individual who rebels against a positive law. The individual has no more rights than the benefit that can be inferred from another's duty.

El máximo error moderno no es anunciar que Dios murió, sino creer que el diablo ha muerto.

Each one of a science's successive orthodoxies appears to be the definitive truth to the disciple.

Those who prophesy more than indefinite cycles of decline and ascent are hiding some suspicious product they want to sell for cash.

Der Reaktionär irrt, wenn er annimmt, daß der Demokrat sein Gründe ablehnt, aber seinen Widerwillen teilt. Der moderne Welt ist ein Schweinestall, in dessen Morast der Mensch von heute sich fröhlich wälzt.

Chi si lamenta dell'angustia dell'ambiente in cui vive pretende che siano gli avvenimenti, i vicini, i paesaggi a fornirgli la sensibilità e l'intelligenza che la natura gli ha negato.

Civilizations are not made "avec des idées" but with good manners.

No pertenezco a un mundo que perece. Prolongo y transmito una verdad que no muere.

Nicht nach der Wahrheit zu suchen ist ein Zeichen der Mittelmäßigkeit; doch es ist kein Zeichen der Größe, sie zu finden.

Man emerges from the beast when he orders his instincts hierarchically.

Only the defeated come to possess sound ideas about the nature of things.

Society tends to be unjust, but not in the way the conceited imagine. There are always more masters who do not deserve their position than servants who do not deserve theirs.

The modern world is condemned precisely by all that with which modern man seeks to justify it.

Maybe nothing has worried and embittered me so much like the fact that life apparently has no other purpose than life.

The only indices of civilization are the clarity, lucidity, order, good manners of everyday prose.

Let us beware of discourse where the adjective "natural" without quotation marks abounds: somebody is deceiving himself, or wants to deceive us. From natural borders to natural religion.

To maintain that "all ideas are respectable" is nothing but pompous nonsense. Nevertheless, there is no opinion that the support of a sufficient number of imbeciles does not oblige one to put up with. Let us not disguise our impotence as tolerance.

The correct use of liberty can consist in adhering to a destiny, but my liberty consists in being able to refuse to do that. The right to fail is an important right of man.

Civilization is not an endless succession of inventions and discoveries, but the task of ensuring that certain things last.

Liberty is, in fact, alienated from itself in the same gesture in which it is assumed, because free action possesses a coherent structure, an internal organization, a regular proliferation of sequelae. The act unfolds, opens up, and expands into necessary consequences, in a manner compatible with its intimate character and with its intelligible nature. Every act submits a piece of the world to a specific configuration.

History is less the evolution of humanity than the unfolding of facets of human nature.

Religion is the only serious thing, but one need not take seriously every declaration of homo religiosus.

The man who invents a new machine invents for humanity a new concatenation of new forms of servitude.