Rereading Nicolás Gómez-Dávila's (1913-1994) Scholia To An Implicit Text,* I felt compelled to share a few of his aphorisms, which he simply called sentences. Since I cannot reprint the entire book here, I settled on a few select quotes to give our readers a small taste of the profound thought and originality of this great reactionary thinker and writer. I highly recommend this book.
The reformers of society persist today in decorating the cabins of a sinking ship. (p. 83)
Modern education yields intact minds into the hands of propaganda. (p. 87)
Modern artists are so eager to be different from one another that such eagerness groups them into a single species. (p. 101)
A leftist Catholic is right when he discovers in the bourgeois the rich of the parables, but lapses into error when he identifies the militant proletariat with the poor of the Gospel. (p. 113)
To distract people while exploiting them, foolish despotisms choose circus fights, whereas sly despotisms prefer electoral contests. (p. 119)
Progress is ultimately reduced to taking away from man what ennobles him in order to sell him cheap what debases him. (p. 137)
Liberalism has not fought for the freedom of the press but for its irresponsibility. (p. 161)
The illiterate were eliminated, only to multiply the ignorant. (p, 179)
A reactionary does not long for the vain restoration of the past but for the unlikely breach between the future and this sordid present. (p. 183)
The modern world shall not be punished. It is the punishment. (p. 195)
Hierarchies are heavenly. In hell, all are equal. (p. 203)
Even though we are forced to yield to the stream of collective nonsense sweeping us along, let us not allow it to melt us into its mire. (p. 213)
I do not belong to a perishing world. I prolong and transmit a deathless truth. (p. 223)
Freedom is the right to be different—equality is its forbiddance (p. 263)
The true reactionary is not a dreamer of bygone times but a hunter of sacred shadows upon the eternal hills. (p. 265)And finally, just to poke a little fun at myself:
Who quotes an author shows that he was unable to assimilate him (p. 105)
* Scholia To An Implicit Text by Nicolás Gómez-Dávila, Bilingual Selected Edition, Villegas Editores, 2013
