Quotes from Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Technology would present fewer dangers if manipulating it were not so simple for the imbecile and so profitable for the thief.

Verdad es aquello que cualquier imbécil refuta.

The 'wheel of fortune' is a better analogy for history than the 'evolution of humanity.

When we suspect the extent of the innate, we realize that pedagogy is the technique of what is secondary. We only learn what we were born to know.

To avenge Nietzsche's attacks on his disciples, Christ ironically prepared to create the Nietzscheans.

Authentic atheism is as important to human intelligence as infinity is to imagination.

Modern man searches first of all for a religion that denies Grace.

Vulgarity consists, basically, in being on first name terms with Plato or Goethe.

Humanity will one day solemnly recall the events that initiated the dismantlement of industrial society.

La oscuridad de un texto no es defecto cuando lo que dice sólo puede decirse oscuramente.

When respect for tradition dies out, society, in its incessant desire to renew itself, consumes itself in a frenzy.

L'homme ne possède pas son intelligence, son intelligence est en visite chez lui.

A revolutionary discovers the "true spirit of the revolution" only when he stands in front of a revolutionary tribunal sentencing him to death.

Es genügt, daß die Schönheit unseren Überdruß streift, damit unser Herz wie Seide zwischen den Händen des Lebens zerreißt.

A noble society is one where obeying and exercising authority are ethical behaviors, and not mere practical necessities.

The cause of the modern disease is the conviction that man can cure himself.

To live is modern man's only value. Even the modern hero does not die except in the name of life.

We doubt the importance of many virtues as long as we do not come across the contrary vice.

My truth is the sum of what I am, not a simple summary of what I think.

A confused idea attracts a fool like a flame attracts an insect.

They started out calling liberal institutions democratic, and they ended up calling democratic despotisms liberal.

Every rebellion against the order of man is noble, so long as it does not disguise rebelliousness against the order of the world.

Power more surely corrupts the man who covets it than the man who exercises it.

To be a revolutionary one must be a little daft; to be a conservative, a little cynical.