Quotes from Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Reactionaries are recruited from among the front-row spectators of a revolution.

Generalizing extends our power and impoverishes our spirit.

Die Versuchung des Paganismus ist nicht die Immortalität, sondern der Moral. Ein ungläubiger Heide hat die Ethik erfunden.

They have buried metaphysics so many times that it must be considered immortal.

Democrats can be divided into those who believe wickedness is curable and those who deny it exists.

Common good, general will, historical necessity, are the names with which the flatterer christens the whims of force.

What most likely is upon us is not a revolutionary terror, but a counter-revolutionary terror implemented by disgusted revolutionaries.

Nietzsche wäre der einzige adlige Bewohner einer verlassenen Welt. Nur seine Option könnte sich ohne Scham der Auferstehung Gottes aussetzen.

The only 18th-century writer to be revived by the admiration of our contemporaries is de Sade. Visitors to a palace who admire nothing but the latrines.

Negarse a admirar es la marca de la bestia.

Las noticias son el substituto de las verdades.

Peace does not flourish except among moribund nations. Under the sun of iron hegemonies.

In its desire to gain the upper hand over democratic humanitarianism, modern Catholicism summarizes the two great commandments of the Gospel thus: You shall love your neighbor above all things.

Los políticos, en la democracia, son los condensadores de la imbecilidad.

Wie eine Tradition aufrecht erhalten? Indem man nicht von ihr spricht.

To excuse his attacks against the world, man determined that matter is inert.

A man is called a liberal if he does not understand that he is sacrificing liberty except when it is too late to save it.

Leftists and rightists merely argue about who is to have possession of industrial society. The reactionary longs for its death.

That the French Revolution was essentially a religious phenomenon was only seen with clarity by Joseph de Maistre and Michelet.

Epistemología que acople un idealismo ontológico a un realismo axiológico. El mundo es mi representación, menos los esplendores que lo rasgan.

Humanity longs to free itself from poverty, from toil, from war—from everything which few escape without degrading themselves.

Die Wahrheit des Menschen ist nichts weiter als eine aufrichtige Überzeugung. Wahrheit ist, was wir als Wahrheit beurteilen, nachdem wir die Gründe erwogen, die Argumente bedacht und unsere Überzeugung auf das breiteste Fundament der Aufrichtigkeit und Ehrlichkeit gestellt haben. Die Wahrheit ist eine Tugend - wie die Blüte, die manchen harten und knorrigen moralischen Wurzeln entstammt. Vielleicht sollte man in der Logik lediglich ein Kapitel der Ethik sehen.

The modern Christian feels professionally obligated to act jovially and jokingly, to show his teeth in a cheerful grin, to profess a slavering friendliness, in order to prove to the unbeliever that Christianity is not a "somber" religion, a "pessimistic" doctrine, an "ascetic" morality. The progressive Christian shakes our hand with the wide grin of a politician running for office.

The standard-bearers of liberty celebrated by the 19th century ended up as the vanguard of industrial despotism.