Quotes from Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Weder Christentum noch Heidentum lehren eine altruistische Ethik. Die christliche wie die heidnische Moral sind ethische Individualismen, die soziale Pflichten einzig als Mittel zu unserer irdischen Vervollkommnung oder zu unserer geheimnisvollen Rettung auferlegen.

Observing life is too interesting to waste time living it.

The reactionary's objection is not discussed; it is disdained.

We reactionaries will live in the future society just as uncomfortably as will the Marxists; but the Marxists will look upon it with the eyes of a dumbfounded father, while we will regard it with the irony of a stranger.

EL mayor triunfo de la ciencia parece estar en la velocidad creciente con que el bobo puede trasladar su bobería de un sitio a otro sitio.

Let us repudiate the abominable suggestion that we should renounce friendship and love in order to banish misfortune. On the contrary, let us mingle our souls just as we weave our bodies together. May the beloved be the land of our shattered roots.

El gusto no se deshonra con lo que le plazca o deteste, sino con lo que erróneamente equipare.

If the left continues adopting, one after another, the objections that we reactionaries have raised against the modern world, we will have to become leftists.

Conservatism should not be a party but the normal attitude of every decent man.

Science deceives us in three ways: by turning its proposals into standards, by disclosing its results rather than its methods, by ignoring its epistemological limitations.

Ingratitude, disloyalty, resentment, rancor define the plebeian soul in every age and characterize this century.

The disaster of democracy only becomes apparent when its promises have been fully fulfilled.

A limited population produces fewer ordinary intelligences than a numerous population, but it can produce an equal or greater number of talents. Great demographic densities are the breeding grounds of mediocrity.

No beneficiary of slaves is supporter of birth control.

What concerns the Christ of the Gospels is not the economic situation of the poor man, but the moral condition of the rich man.

To be on the left is to believe that the omens of catastrophe are omens of prosperity.

There are two symmetrical forms of barbarism: peoples who have nothing but customs and peoples who respect nothing but laws.

Nicht nach Freiheit strebt der Verstand, sondern nach Unterwerfung. Die Wahrheit ist der Glanz der Notwendigkeit.

Despite what is taught today, easy sex does not solve every problem. Sex does not solve even sexual problems.

All science feeds on the convictions that it strangles.

Everything that interrupts a tradition obliges us to start over. And every origin is bloody .

Until man rouses himself from his current orgy of pride, it is not worth the trouble attempting anything. Only looks not thrown out of focus by pride attain that lucid vision of the world which confirms what we preach.

This century has succeeded in turning sex into a trivial activity and an odious topic.

Eugenics appals those who fear its judgment.