Evil’s greatest guile is its transformation into a domestic, secret god, a comforting presence on the hearth.
Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (“Don Colacho”) in his library
English translations of the aphorisms of Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (“Don Colacho”) in his library
About
Who was Nicolás Gómez Dávila?
What did Nicolás Gómez Dávila think about...?
- God & Religion
- Gnosticism
- Politics, Law & Society
- Democracy & Equality
- Liberty & Liberties
- Reaction & the Reactionary
- Progress & Progressives
- Revolutions & Revolutionaries
- Marx & Marxists
- The Bourgeoisie & Capitalism
- Technique & Technology
- Intelligence & Wisdom (& Stupidity)
- Problems & Solutions
- Philosophy
- Hierarchical Axiology
- History & Historiography
- Arts & Letters
- Virtue & Vice
- Love & Sensuality
- Taste, Manners, Sentiments
- The Art of Writing
- Index
Links
Epigraphs
“Quel fanatisme!” exclama le pharmacien, en se penchant vers le notaire.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
(Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ.
(Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imaginèd.
(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
(Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen.
(Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo.
(Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
(Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ.
(Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imaginèd.
(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
(Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen.
(Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo.
(Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
The original Spanish is:
ReplyDeleteLa mayor astucia del mal es su mudanza en dios doméstico y secreto, cuya hogareña presencia reconforta.
Cf. Notas, p. 220:
ReplyDelete"All of evil's ability lies in transforming itself into a discrete domestic god, whose presence is no longer disquieting."
This early version of the aphorism is prefaced by a paragraph on the effect of evil on the soul:
"The vices we acquire tansform the moral universe in which we used to live. We begin to forgive actions which we would have condemned before; the inocuousness of those vices that seduce us seems obvious to us and, in that way, a new innocence invades new territories. Familiarity with vice invests it with the humble, gray habit of quotidian, insignficant actions. The universe of a diabolically vicious man would be have a deplorably trivial quality and a deplorably routine innocence."