Quotes from Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Making us feel intelligent is how nature notifies us that we are saying something stupid.

Nothing makes clearer the limits of science than the scientist's opinions about any topic that is not strictly related to his profession.

Our freedom has no other guarantee than the barricades which the anarchic countenance of the world throws up against the imperialism of reason.

Im Universum gibt es Inseln der Ordnung. Aber die angebliche Ordnung des Universums ist ein ideologisches Artefakt.

Replacing the concrete sense perception of the object with its abstract intellectual construction makes man gain the world and lose his soul. What draws us away from God is not sensuality but abstraction.

Der authentische Atheismus hat für die menschliche Intelligenz den gleichen Stellenwert wie die Unendlichkeit für die Vorstellungskraft.

The Marxist has no doubt about the perversity of his adversary. The reactionary merely suspects that his adversary is stupid.

Mensch ohne Vorurteile bedeutet gewöhnlich Mensch ohne Geistigkeit. Vorurteile, Aberglauben, Skrupel sind Keime des Geistes, der in einfachen Seelen sprießt. Mit ihnen aufzuräumen, um von den Seelen die Last zu nhmen, die "den freien Ausdruck des Geistes erstickt", begünstigt lediglich die Erosion dieser armen Boden.

The ineptitude and folly of the bishops' and popes' chatter would disturb us, if we old Catholics had not fortunately learned as little children to sleep during the sermon.

Quienes gimen sobre la estrechez del medio en que viven pretenden que los acontecimientos, los vecinos, los paisajes, les den la sensibilidad y la inteligencia que la naturaleza les negó.

An age is civilized if it does not reserve intelligence for professional work.

Nobody finds himself by searching merely for himself. Personality is born out of conflict with a norm.

The individual today rebels against immutable human nature so that he might refrain from amending his own correctable nature.

Rites preserve, sermons undermine faith.

Alles was ein Tradition unterbricht zwingt zu neuem Anfang. Und jeder Anfang ist blutig.

Wir müssen das Leben darum bitten, uns vegetieren zu lassen, denn nur so können wir Blüten treiben.

The abuse of the printing press is due to the scientific method and the expressionist aesthetic. To the former because it allows any mediocre person to write a correct and useless monograph, and to the latter because it legitimizes the effusions of any fool.

It is upon the antinomies of reason, upon the scandals of the spirit, upon the ruptures in the universe, that I base my hope and my faith.

Die These der Einheit der Wissenschaft ist kein epistemologische Erfordernis. Nicht einmal ein intellektuelles Programm. Sondern angstvolle Verkrampfung angesichts des Geheimnisses.

En este siglo toda empresa colectiva edifica prisiones. Sólo el egoísmo nos impide colaborar en vilezas. Hoy los copartícipes terminan en cómplices.

For the trunk of individuality to grow, one must prevent freedom from making the trunk spread out into branches.

The most precise and shortest definition of a true civilization has been given by Trevelyan: A leisured class with large and learned libraries in their country seats.

The worst [type of] totalitarianism is not that of a state or a nation, but of society: society as the all-encompassing goal of all goals.

Humanity is not cured of its diseases except by means of catastrophes that decimate it. Man has never known how to renounce at the right time.