#243

The historian of religions should learn that the gods do not resemble the forces of nature, but rather the forces of nature resemble the gods.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 58

#242

Ridicule is the highest court of appeals in our earthly condition.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 58

#241

An individual’s culture is the sum total of intellectual or artistic objects that bring him pleasure.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 58

#240

I envy those who do not feel that they own only their stupidities.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 58

#239

A naked body solves all the universe’s problems.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#238

The silent presence of a fool is the catalyst that precipitates in a conversation all the stupidities of which the most intelligent speakers are capable.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#237

Prejudices defend against stupid ideas.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#236

There is something unforgivably vile in sacrificing even the most foolish of principles to the most noble of passions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#235

Tired of sliding down the comfortable slope of daring opinions, intelligence finally settles in the rocky terrain of commonplaces.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#234

Transforming the world: the occupation of a convict resigned to his punishment.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#233

South American exuberance is not abundance, but disorder.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 57

#232

The most execrable tyranny is that which adduces principles we respect.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#231

We believe we confront our theories with the facts, but we can only confront them with theories of experience.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#230

Modern man already knows that political solutions are ludicrous and suspects that economic solutions are too.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#229

The people has never been fêted except at the expense of another social class.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#228

The intelligent man’s unjust judgments tend to be truths wrapped up in a bad mood.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#227

The professorial tone is not characteristic of one who knows, but of one who doubts.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#226

What reason considers impossible is the only thing that can make our heart overflow.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 56

#225

The atrocity of the act of revenge is proportional not to the atrocity of the offense, but to the atrocity of the man taking revenge.
(For the methodology of revolutions.)

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#224

In order to challenge God, man puffs up his emptiness.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#223

Love and hate do not create, but reveal, qualities which our indifference obscures.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#222

If the philosophy and the arts and letters of the past century are only the superstructures of its bourgeois economy, we should defend capitalism to the death.
All stupidity commits suicide.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#221

A ceremony is a technical procedure for teaching indemonstrable truths.
Ritual and pomp overcome man’s blindness before what is not material and coarse.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#220

The greatest modern error is not to proclaim that God died, but to believe that the devil has died.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#219

Personality, in our time, is the sum total of what impresses the fool.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 55

#218

When today they tell us that someone lacks personality, we know they are speaking of a simple, trustworthy, upright being.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#217

Societal salvation is near when each person admits that he can save only himself.
Society is saved when its supposed saviors despair.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#216

Rare are those who forgive us when we make it harder for them to shirk their duties.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#215

Leveling is the barbarian’s substitute for order.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#214

Beauty, heroism, glory feed on man’s heart like silent flames.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#213

Between the anarchy of instincts and the tyranny of norms there extends the fleeting and pure territory of human perfection.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#212

Perfection is the point where what we can do and what we want to do coincide with what we ought to do.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 54

#211

Whoever tries to educate and not exploit a people, or a child, does not speak to them in baby-talk.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#210

The individual today rebels against immutable human nature so that he might refrain from amending his own correctable nature.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#209

Compassion agrees, at times, to solutions which a certain intellectual sense of honor obliges it to reject.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#208

The people does not elect someone who will cure it, but someone who will drug it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#207

The destructive capacity of the imbecile’s smile.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#206

Nobody is innocent of what he does, nor of what he believes.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#205

To disagree is to assume a risk no one should assume but the mature and cautious conscience.
Sincerity protects against neither error nor foolishness.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 53

#204

Who does not share the sorrow of the man who feels rejected? But, who meditates on the anguish of the man who fears he has been chosen?

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 52

#203

Faith that does not know how to make fun of itself should doubt its authenticity.
The smile is the solvent of the simulacrum.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 52

#202

Do they preach the truths in which they believe, or the truths in which they believe they ought to believe?

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 52

#201

Criticism loses interest the more rigidly its tasks are defined. The obligation to concentrate only on literature, only on art, sterilizes it.
A great critic is a moralist who strolls among books.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 52

#200

We should not conclude that everything is permitted, if God does not exist, but that nothing matters.
Permission ends up being laughable when what is permitted loses its meaning.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 52

#199

Spiritual realities move us by their presence, sensual realities by their absence.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 52

#198

Speech was given to man not to deceive, but to deceive himself.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#197

We live as long as we believe we are fulfilling the promises we are breaking.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#196

We live because we do not view ourselves with the same eyes with which everybody else views us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#195

Many a modern poem is obscure, not like a subtle text, but like a personal letter.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#194

What arouses our antipathy is always a lack of something.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#193

Because he does not understand the objection that refutes him, the fool believes he has been proved right.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#192

The only influences on our life are small truths, miniscule insights.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#191

To think that only important things matter is the menace of barbarism.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 51

#190

Books are not tools of perfection but barricades against boredom.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#189

Every phenomenon has its sociological explanation, always necessary and always insufficient.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#188

Antipathy and sympathy are the primordial attitudes of intelligence.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#187

Triviality is the price of communication.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#186

To reform everyone else is an ambition which all mock yet which all nurse.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#185

The poison of desire is the nourishment of passion.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#184

Legitimate ambitions become shy and resigning amidst the throng of fraudulent ambitions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#183

How can anyone live who does not hope for miracles?

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#182

Far from establishing God as certain, ethics does not have sufficient autonomy to establish even itself as certain.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 50

#181

Man hobbles through disappointments supported by small, trivial successes.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#180

Words do not communicate, they remind.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#179

The passage from one book to another book is made through life.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#178

Defeating a fool humiliates us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#177

Succumbing to noble temptations prevents surrendering to base temptations.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#176

Moral delicacy forbids to itself things it allows to others.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#175

To attribute to old age the dregs accumulated throughout life is the consolation of the old.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#174

The near future will probably bring extraordinary catastrophes, but what threatens the world most certainly is not the violence of ravenous crowds, but the weariness of boring masses.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 49

#173

Aging is a catastrophe of the body which our cowardice turns into a catastrophe of the soul.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#172

The most presumptuous wisdom stands ashamed before the soul drunk with love or hatred.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#171

The communist’s temptation is spiritual freedom.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#170

Other ages may have been as vulgar as ours, but none had the extraordinary sounding board, the inexorable amplifier, of modern industry.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#169

Modern man has the ambition of replacing with objects he buys what other ages hoped to obtain from the methodical cultivation of the sentiments.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#168

The ugliness of an object is a prior condition of its industrial multiplication.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#167

Criticism of the bourgeois receives praise from two sources: from the Marxist, who considers us intelligent because we confirm his prejudices; and from the bourgeois, who considers us wise because he is thinking about his neighbor.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 48

#166

The most foolish promise appears to us to be the return of a lost good.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#165

Vanity is not an affirmation but a question.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#164

Man would not feel so unfortunate if it were enough for him to desire without pretending to have a right to what he desires.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#163

What cements society together is mutual flattery.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#162

Participating in collective enterprises allows the appetite to be satiated, even as it feels uninterested.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#161

In the midst of a thousand noble things we sometimes pursue only the echo of some trivial lost emotion.
Will my heart rest for eternity beneath the vineyard’s shadow, near the rough, unfinished table, in the sight of the splendor of the sea?

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#160

It is not the origin of religions, or their cause, which requires explanation, but rather the cause and origin of their eclipse and neglect.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 47

#159

An American historian cannot write history without lamenting that providence did not consult him beforehand.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 46

#158

Of the beings we love, their existence is enough for us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 46

#157

Nobody is completely lacking in qualities able to arouse our respect, our admiration, or our envy.
Whoever might appear unable to give us an example has been carelessly observed.

#156

In the silence of the night the spirit forgets the weary body holding it captive, and conscious of its imperishable youth, considers itself the brother of every earthly spring.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 46

#155

Our ability to love something other than God proves our indelible mediocrity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 46

#154

Even if humility did not save us from hell, in any event it saves us from ridicule.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 46

#153

The most desperate man is only the man who best hides his hope.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 45

#152

Between intelligent adversaries there exists a secret sympathy, since we all owe our intelligence and our virtues to the virtues and intelligence of our enemy.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 45

#151

Those who are partially wrong irritate us; those who are totally wrong amuse us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 45

#150

How routine insults are today proves our ignorance in the art of living.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 45

#149

Nothing is rarer than someone who affirms, or denies, but does not exaggerate in order to flatter or to injure.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 45

#148

No city reveals its beauty as long as its daily torrent runs through it.
The absence of man is the final condition of the perfection of everything.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 45

#147

The novel adds to history its third dimension.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#146

Popular disturbances lack importance so long as they do not become ethical problems for the ruling classes.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#145

The authentic problem demands not that we solve it but that we try to live it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#144

Lasting friendships usually require a shared laziness.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#143

Rejection troubles us and approval confuses us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#142

Writing would be easy if the same phrase did not appear alternately, depending on the day and the hour, mediocre and excellent.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#141

Art never grows tiresome because each work is an adventure which no previous success guarantees.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 44

#140

The cause of democracy’s stupidities is confidence in the anonymous citizen; and the cause of its crimes is the anonymous citizen’s confidence in himself.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#139

Pride’s shadow smothers the sprouting of a thousand infamies.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#138

A certain intellectual courtesy makes us prefer the ambiguous word. The univocal term subjects the universe to its arbitrary rigidity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#137

Natural inequalities would make the democrat’s life bitter, if slander did not exist.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#136

Nothing is more dangerous than to solve ephemeral problems with permanent solutions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#135

Despair is the dark valley through which the soul ascends toward a universe no longer sullied by greed.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#134

A truthful, austere intellectual life grabs out of our hands art, literature, and the sciences, in order to prepare us to confront fate all alone.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 43

#133

Elegance, dignity, nobility are the only values life does not succeed in disrespecting.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42

#132

Who does not fear that the most trivial of his present moments will seem a lost paradise in years to come?

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42

#131

What modesty is required to expect from man only what he yearns for!

#130

If God were the conclusion of a syllogism, I would not feel compelled to adore Him.
But God is not merely the substance of what I hope for, but the substance of what I live.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42

#129

The idea of another only interests the fool when it touches on his own personal tribulations.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42

#128

Man does not create his gods in his image and likeness, but rather conceives himself in the image and likeness of the gods in which he believes.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42

#127

We all try to bribe our voice so that it will call sin “error” or “misfortune.”

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 42

#126

Refusing to consider what disgusts us is the most serious limitation threatening us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#125

Eloquence is the child of presumption.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#124

To depend solely on God’s will is our true autonomy.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#123

In the incoherence of a political constitution resides the only authentic guarantee of liberty.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#121

What we believe unites or divides us less than how we believe it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#122

Human nobility is a work that time occasionally fashions in our daily ignominy.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#120

Thinking does not prepare one to live, nor does living prepare one to think.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#119

Civilization is what old men manage to salvage from the onslaught of young idealists.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 41

#118

He who understands least is he who he stubbornly insists on understanding more than can be understood.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#117

Mankind believes that it corrects its mistakes by repeating them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#116

To be young is to fear being thought stupid; to mature is to fear being stupid.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#115

The prejudices of other ages are incomprehensible to us when our own blind us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#114

We call an egoist anyone who does not sacrifice himself to our egoism.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#113

A great love is a well ordered sensuality.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#112

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

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#111

Prolixity is not an excess of words but a dearth of ideas.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 40

#110

All literature is contemporary for the reader who knows how to read.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#109

Something divine blossoms in the moment preceding triumph and following failure.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#108

Wisdom comes down to not showing God how things should be done.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#107

Sincerity corrupts, simultaneously, good manners and good taste.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#106

We need people to contradict us in order to refine our ideas.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#105

God is the substance of what we love.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#104

To educate man is to impede the “free expression of his personality.”

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#103

Poverty is the only barrier to the throng of vulgarities that whinny inside souls.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 39

#102

To think like our contemporaries is the prescription for prosperity and for stupidity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#101

It is enough for a few wings to brush us and ancestral fears will reawaken.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#100

To scorn or to be scorned is the plebeian alternative of animal life.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#99

Stupidity is the angel that expels man from his momentary paradises.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#98

What are called good manners are habits derived from respect for a superior transformed into dealings between equals.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#97

A man loves only someone who adores him, but respects only someone who insults him.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#96

The arguments with which we justify our conduct are often dumber than our actual conduct.
It is more tolerable to watch men live than to hear them spout their opinions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 38

#95

He who is not aware that two opposite adjectives simultaneously qualify every object should not speak of anything.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#94

History shows not the inefficacy of actions but the futility of intentions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#93

The serious man is just as idiotic as intelligence that is not serious.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#92

The prestige of “culture” makes the fool eat though he is not hungry.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#91

What does it matter that the historian says what men do if he does not know how to relate what they feel?

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#90

The hero and the coward define in the same way the object which they perceive in antagonistic ways.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#89

Only one thing is not in vain: the sensual perfection of the moment.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 37

#88

Wisdom consists in resigning oneself to the only thing possible without proclaiming it the only thing necessary.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#87

The spirit searches in a painting for a sensual enrichment.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#86

Beauty does not surprise us, but fills us till we overflow.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#85

The ironist mistrusts what he says without believing that the opposite is true.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#84

Thought tends to be a response to an outrage rather than to a question.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#83

Our maturity must re-conquer its lucidity daily.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#82

Write concisely, so as to finish before making the reader sick.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#81

Only he lives his life who observes it, thinks it, and says it; the rest let life live them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 36

#80

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

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#79

The soul grows inwards.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#78

We only have those virtues and those flaws which we do not suspect.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#77

Society rewards screaming virtues and discreet vices.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#76

Whoever does not turn his back on the contemporary world dishonors himself.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#75

In authentic humanism there breathes the presence of a discreet and comfortable sensuality.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#74

Truth is the happiness of intelligence.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#73

It is not true that things have value because life matters. On the contrary, life matters because things have value.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 35

#72

Wisdom consists in being moderate not out of horror of excess, but out of love for the limit.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34

#71

For moving situations only commonplaces will do. A stupid song expresses great pain better than a noble verse.
Intelligence is an activity of impassible beings.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34

#70

Pleasure is the ludicrous spark caused by the contact between desire and nostalgia.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34

#69

A book does not educate someone who reads it to become educated.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34

#68

An intelligent idea produces sensual pleasure.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34

#67

Vulgarity consists in striving to be what we are not.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 34

#66

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

#65

A compassionate providence allots each man his daily stultification.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#64

We start out choosing because we admire and we end up admiring because we chose.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#63

Chance will always rule history, because it is not possible to organize the state in such a way that it does not matter who rules.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#62

In medieval society, society is the state; in the bourgeois society, state and society confront each other; in the Communist society, the state is society.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#61

The momentary beauty of the instant is the only thing in the universe which accords with the deepest desire of our souls.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#60

Nobody has so much sentimental capital that he can afford to squander his enthusiasm.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#59

The writer arranges for syntax to return to thought the simplicity which words take away.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 33

#58

History buries, without solving, the problems it raises.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#57

Spasms of injured vanity, or of greed trampled underfoot—democratic doctrines invent the evils they denounce in order to justify the good they proclaim.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#56

The historical importance of a man rarely corresponds to his intimate nature.
History is full of victorious morons.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#55

Wise politics is the art of invigorating society and weakening the State.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#54

The struggle against injustice that does not culminate in sanctity culminates in bloody upheavals.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#53

The political presence of the masses always culminates in a hellish apocalypse.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#52

More repulsive than the future which progressives involuntarily prepare is the future they dream of.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 32

#51

Legislation that protects liberty down to the last detail strangles liberties.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#50

The more serious its problems, the greater the number of inept men democracy calls forth to solve them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#49

Everything is trivial if the universe is not committed to a metaphysical adventure.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#48

Religion did not arise out of the need to assure social solidarity, nor were cathedrals built to encourage tourism.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#47

The perfections of the one we love are not fictions of love. To love, on the contrary, is the privilege of noticing a perfection invisible to other eyes.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#46

To be right is just one more reason not to achieve any success.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#45

The philosopher is not the spokesman of his age, but an angel imprisoned in time.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 31

#44

Genius is the capacity to make on our stiff, frozen imagination the impact that any book makes on a child’s imagination.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#43

Phrases are pebbles that the writer tosses into the reader’s soul.
The diameter of the concentric waves they displace depends on the dimensions of the pond.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#42

Time should be feared less because it kills than because it unmasks.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#41

Man prefers to excuse himself with somebody else’s fault rather than with his own innocence.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#40

More surely than an accursed wealth there is an accursed poverty: that of the man who suffers not from being poor but from not being rich; that of the man who complacently tolerates every misfortune shared by someone else; that of the man who desires not to abolish poverty, but to abolish the good he covets.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#39

There is no noble substitute for absent hope.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#38

The man who renounces appears impotent to a man incapable of renouncing.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 30

#37

To refuse to admire is the mark of the beast.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#36

Thinking is often reduced to inventing reasons to doubt the obvious.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#35

The mob admires the confused more than the complex.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#34

The authenticity of the sentiment depends on the clarity of the idea.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#33

Man believes that his impotence is the measure of things.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#32

A certain disdainful way of speaking about the people reveals the plebeian in disguise.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#31

Social mobility occasions class warfare.
The enemy of the upper classes is not the inferior man who lacks every chance to rise, but rather the man who does not manage to rise when others rise.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#30

When people stop fighting for the possession of private property, they will fight for the usufruct in collective property.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 29

#29

Technology does not fulfill man’s perennial dreams, but craftily mimics them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#28

Unable to achieve what it desires, “progress” christens what it achieves desire.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#27

By the same measure that the state grows, the individual shrinks.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#26

Love of the people is the aristocrat’s vocation. The democrat does not love the people except during election season.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#25

The militant communist before his victory deserves the greatest respect.
Afterwards, he is nothing more than an overworked bourgeois.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#24

Marxists define the bourgeoisie in economic terms in order to hide from us the fact that they belong to it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#23

The bourgeoisie is any group of individuals dissatisfied with what they have and satisfied with what they are.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#22

The bourgeois gives up his power in order to save his money; then he gives up his money in order to save his skin; and finally they hang him.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 28

#21

Democratic parliaments are not forums where debates take place, but rather where popular absolutism registers its decrees.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#20

After every revolution the revolutionary teaches that the true revolution will be tomorrow’s revolution.
The revolutionary explains that a despicable villain betrayed yesterday’s revolution.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#19

An “ideal society” would be the graveyard of human greatness.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#18

Only liberty limits the abusive interventions of ignorance.
Politics is the science of social structures made suitable for the common life of ignorant persons.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#17

Every end other than God dishonors us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#16

A voluptuous presence communicates its sensual splendor to every thing.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#15

The psychologist dwells in the slums of the soul, just as the sociologist dwells on the outskirts of society.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 27

#14

When things appear to us to be only what they appear to be, soon they appear to be even less.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#13

For God there are only individuals.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#12

Our last hope lies in the injustice of God.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#11

There are a thousand truths; error is one.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#10

To satisfy man’s pride is perhaps easier than our pride imagines.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#9

Liberty is not an end, but a means. Whoever mistakes it for an end does not know what to do once he attains it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#8

Love is the organ with which we perceive the unmistakable individuality of beings.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#7

Nothing tends to be more difficult than not pretending to understand.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#6

Spiritual maturity begins when we stop feeling like we have to take care of the world.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 26

#5

To adapt is to sacrifice a remote good to an immediate necessity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 25

#4

Those who lament the narrowness of the environment in which they live long for events, neighbors, landscapes to give them the sensibility and intelligence which nature denied them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 25

#3

It is easy to believe that we partake of certain virtues when we share in the defects they imply.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 25

#2

The reader will not find aphorisms in these pages.
My brief sentences are the dots of color in a pointillist painting.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 25

#1

Men change ideas less than ideas change disguise.
Through the course of the centuries the same voices are in dialogue.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 25

Epigraphs

Gómez Dávila placed seven quotations at the beginning of the first volume of Escolios a un Texto Implícito as epigraphs to serve as a hermeneutical key for his readers. These epigraphs can be found in the left sidebar. Gómez Dávila, however, left all these quotations in their original languages. What follow, then, are translations of the epigraphs (in bold print), some information about their original context, and a brief explanation of their relevance to the Escolios.

* * * 1 * * *

The first quotation comes from Part II, Chapter 8 of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. This chapter focuses primarily on the beginning of the affair between Emma and Rodolphe, who attend an agricultural show together. Also attending the show is the local chemist, the town’s most ardent atheist. At the show, a local dignitary gives away many prizes, including a silver medal, worth 25 francs, to an old woman who has worked 54 years at the same farm. This woman, apparently hard of hearing and perhaps not all that bright, has to have her name called many times before she finally approaches the stage to accept the award.

Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could hear her muttering “I’ll give it to our cure up home, to say some masses for me!”

“What fanaticism!” exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to the notary.

The translation is by Eleanor Marx-Aveling.

Gómez Dávila shows his courage and his sense of humor here. He knows how his writings will come across to most people, but he is not afraid of being called a fanatical Catholic. Not only that, but he even laughs at being called a fanatic, by associating himself with the old lady. Perhaps this excerpt from Madame Bovary was the inspiration for this aphorism: “My convictions are the same as those of an old woman praying in the corner of a church.”

* * * 2 * * *

The second quotation comes from Part II, Chapter 19 of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616). In this chapter, Don Quixote, the knight-errant of La Mancha, discusses with his squire, Sancho Panza, the possibility of coming to the rescue of the dashing young swordsman Basilio, whose lady love, the fair Quiteria, is about to be married off to Camacho, the son of a wealthy farmer.

Sancho proceeds to give his opinion, rattling off, in his inimitable way, a number of proverbs. This upsets Don Quixote:

“When are you going to stop, Sancho, a plague on you?” said Don Quixote. “When you begin to string together your proverbs and tales, only Judas himself would understand you—may he seize you. Tell me, blockhead, what do you know about spokes, or wheels, or anything else?”

“Well, if you don’t understand me,” rejoined Sancho, “it’s no wonder that my opinions are taken for nonsense. But no matter; I understand myself, and I know that I haven’t said many foolish things in my comments, only your worship is always an incensory of my sayings and even of my doings.”

“Censor, you should say,” replied Don Quixote, “and not incensory; confound you for a perverter of good language.”

The translation is by Walter Starkie in Cervantes, Don Quixote (New York: Signet Classics, 1964), pp. 660-661.

This humorous quotation from Don Quixote, in which Gómez Dávila identifies himself with Sancho Panza, lends an ironic tone to the Escolios from the outset. Already, Gómez Dávila warns his readers that the book they are about to read is deeply personal, and not easily understood even by those who know the author—even though the only way to understand the book is to know the author. Gómez Dávila begins his book with a discreet smile.

* * * 3 * * *

Diogenes Laërtius was a Greek writer who probably lived in the first half of the third century A.D. He is known to the modern world only as the author of The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, a collection of sayings and anecdotes.

The quotation here comes from Diogenes’ life of the Stoic philosopher Herillus, whose books are described (in my very literal translation) as

few-lined, yet full of power.

There are two translations of Diogenes Laërtius available in the public domain. The first, by Charles Duke Yonge (1853), gives the full sentence—Gómez Dávila omitted the first part—as:

His books contain but few lines, but they are full of power.

The second translation, by Robert Drew Hicks (1925), is available in the Loeb Classical Library; it renders the sentence, a little more freely, as:

His writings, though they do not occupy much space, are full of vigor.

An online version of the Greek text may be found here.

This is as good a description as any of Gómez Dávila’s Escolios. Though there are plenty of lines in his books, he actually did not write very much for a man who spent most of his life in his library. Indeed, many of the aphorisms in the Escolios are not even original: some are simply re-workings of observations from Notas and Textos I or slightly different formulations of aphorisms found elsewhere among the Escolios, while others are echoes or paraphrases of authors he read. This should not shock the reader. Rather, as Gómez Dávila himself said, he did not seek originality but only wanted to write a “circular book.” It is precisely this circularity and this brevity that give his prose such power.

* * * 4 * * *

Shakespeare requires neither introduction nor translation.

The two lines here come from his 1594 narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8. The preceding lines, however, are also of interest, because they too are suggestive of Gómez Dávila’s allusive style:

For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles’ image stood his spear
Griped in an armed hand; himself, behind
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind:
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imagined.

This quotation from Shakespeare refers to Gómez Dávila’s decision to write aphorisms rather than a more systematic treatise. Franco Volpi cites this epigraph in explaining that “the implicit text is the limit toward which Gómez Dávila’s propositions regress.” In further support of this statement, Volpi quotes this passage from Notas (Bogotá: Villegas Editores, 2003), p. 51, in which Gómez Dávila identifies himself with “the mediocre man”:

Diaries, notes, sketches—they betray every great spirit who makes use of them, for by demanding little of him they do not allow him to display his gifts, nor his exceptional virtues; on the other hand, like clever accomplices, they help the mediocre man who employs them. They help him because they suggest an ideal prolongation, a fictitious work that does not accompany them.

* * * 5 * * *

French poet Paul Valéry (1871-1945) is the source of the fifth epigraph. These are the last five lines of “Le Sylphe” (“The Sylph”), originally published by Valéry in Charmes (1922).

The poem is not long—it is a short-lined sonnet in form. According to David Paul, it is a “puzzle-poem [constructed] around the familiar expression ‘Ni vu ni connu,’ challenging the reader to find something, as in ‘hide and seek.’” Peter Dale explains that it has been interpreted to be a poem “on the wayward nature of inspiration,” and may also be regarded as a “gentle mockery of Valéry’s exegetes.”

Here are two translations of the entire poem. The first translation is by David Paul, in the first volume of The Collected Works of Paul Valéry (ed. Jackson Mathews) (Princeton University Press, 1956), p. 179:

Nor seen nor known
I am the perfume
Alive, dead and gone
In the wind as it comes!

Nor seen nor known,
Genius or chance?
The moment I’m come,
The task is done!

Nor read, nor divined?
To the keenest minds
What hints of illusions!

Nor seen nor known,
A bare breast glimpsed
Between gown and gown!

The second is by Peter Dale, in Charms and Other Pieces (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 2007), p. 99:

Not seen, nor known,
I’m perfume spread
Living and dead
By the wind blown!

Not seen, nor known,
Hazard or feat:
Hardly yet shown
The task’s complete!

Unread, undelved?
In best minds shelved
What errors certs!

Not known, not seen,
Time bare breasts lean
Between two shirts!

A complete copy of the poem (in French) may be found here.

These lines from “The Sylph” combine nicely two themes in Gómez Dávila’s thought. First, as mentioned above, Valéry’s concern with the nature of inspiration, presented here in a somewhat mysterious poem, accords quite well with Gómez Dávila’s own thoughts on the nature of knowledge and truth, especially his opposition to rationalism. He celebrates “hints of illusions,” though that is hardly surprising for a thinker who rejoices in the insolubility of man’s fundamental problems. Second, the final lines—“a bare breast glimpsed/between gown and gown”—give a hint of the “the discreet and comfortable sensuality” of authentic humanism that runs throughout Gómez Dávila’s Escolios.

* * * 6* * *

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), like many writers, felt that his critics, and even his admirers, did not actually understand him. This is what he complains about in his January 8, 1888, letter to Georg Brandes, the Danish intellectual who “discovered” Nietzsche and first began to spread word of him in Scandinavia.

That what is involved here is the extended logic of a very definite philosophical sensibility and not a jumble of a hundred random paradoxes and heterodoxies—none of that has dawned, I believe, on even my most sympathetic readers.

The complete letter (in German) may be read here.

This sentence from Nietzsche warns the reader to be careful before drawing any conclusions from individual aphorisms. While many individual aphorisms are indeed eminently quotable, there is a danger in simply using the Escolios as an arsenal of quotations for use in arguments. The reader must view Gómez Dávila’s “paradoxes and heterodoxies” in their proper context; when he does this, the individual aphorisms, like the dots of color in a pointillist painting, will come together before his eyes, and he will gain a clearer picture of Gómez Dávila’s own “very definite philosophical sensibility.” To fully understand his sensibility, though, the reader must also try to enter into his experiences: “To express ideas is easy, but it is almost impossible to communicate the context that makes them intelligible. Whoever does not share our experiences deceives himself when he believes he understands us” (Escolios a un Texto Implícito II, p. 44).

Any reader who has trouble discerning from the Escolios what this philosophical sensibility might be is encouraged to read Textos I (1959). This early work is a collection of essays that bring together in essays some of the ideas found scattered throughout the Escolios.

* * * 7 * * *

Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), or Petrarch as he is more commonly known in English, was an Italian writer, and is usually considered the first of the Renaissance humanists. Though he is most often remembered today for the sonnets he composed for Laura in Italian, he is also noteworthy for having cultivated a more classical Latinity than was usual in the Middle Ages. This style is preserved in the many letters he wrote, both to actual friends, as well as to famous individuals from history, such as Cicero, whose prose style he imitated and whose own letters he cherished.

In the seventh letter in Book XIX of his Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Petrarch explains to his friend that he prefers the night to the day because, whereas the day only brings worries, the night brings silence. He ends the letter with an exhortation to himself to seek interior peace, and to ask for it from the Lord. Petrarch also makes this personal observation, which Gómez Dávila applies to himself:

And you wonder that few men like me, even though I only get along with a few men—I who perceive almost everything differently than does the crowd and who always consider the right path to be the one that is as far as possible from the crowd.

My thanks go out to Michael Gilleland, who besides checking the above translation kindly supplied me with his own:

And you wonder that I please few—for me, there is agreement with few; to me, almost everything appears differently than it does to the crowd; I always consider that entirely the right path which is most distant from the crowd.

The complete letter (in Latin) may be found here.

Petrarch’s remarks about his tendency to flee society remind the reader that Gómez Dávila composed his aphorisms in silence and solitude, which are also necessary for the reader who desires to understand them; distance from the crowd (vulgus in Latin) is essential.

Index of Labels

Below is an index of all the labels that appear at the bottom of each individual post. The number in parentheses next to each label indicates the number of aphorisms in that category. Many aphorisms are in more than one category.

A
Abstraction (13)
Absurdity (2)
Academia (23)
Action (1)
Admiration (10)
Adolescence (9)
Adventure (5)
Aesthetics (39)
Agriculture (5)
Alienation (1)
Allegiance (1)
Ambition (17)
America (5)
Anarchy (1)
Anger (2)
Anguish (2)
Anonymity (18)
Anthropology (3)
Antiquity (11)
Aphorisms (22)
Apologetics (6)
Apostolate (6)
Architecture (6)
Aristocracy (17)
Aristotle (1)
Art (80)
Asceticism (7)
Asia (1)
Atheism (6)
Authenticity (9)
Authority (15)
Autonomy (2)

B
Barbarism (2)
Beauty (21)
Betrayal (5)
Bible (19)
Biography (4)
Biology (2)
Books (48)
Boredom (27)
Bourgeoisie (62)
Buddhism (1)
Bureaucracy (16)

C
Capitalism (23)
Catastrophe (9)
Catholicism (78)
Censorship (2)
Ceremony (1)
Cervantes (1)
Change (1)
Christianity (91)
Civilization (58)
Class (15)
Classics (6)
Collectivism (2)
Colonies (4)
Common sense (2)
Commonplaces (13)
Communism (26)
Communitarianism (1)
Compassion (7)
Complacency (3)
Conscience (1)
Conservatism (3)/Conservative (2)
Consumption (7)
Contemplation (2)
Corruption (7)
Cosmopolitanism (1)
Criticism (15)
Culture (52)
Custom (13)
Cynicism (4)

D
Death (11)
Decadence (4)
Defeat (6)
Demagogy (2)
Democracy (129)
Demography (12)
Desire (10)
Despair (1)
Devil (13)
Dialogue (20)
Dignity (5)
Discipline (7)
Doubt (9)
Dreams (9)
Duty (7)

E
Economics (37)
Education (43)
Egoism (7)
Emotion (2)
Entertainment (5)
Enthusiasm (2)
Environment (4)
Envy (46)
Equality (42)
Eroticism (7)
Escapism (4)
Essence (1)
Eternal (3)
Ethics (53)
Europe (4)
Evil (19)
Experience (14)
Experts (2)
Exploitation (1)

F
Fact (1)
Failure (17)
Faith (54)
Family (3)
Fanaticism (1)
Fantasy (3)
Fashion (15)
Fear (8)
Feudalism (5)
Flattery (3)
Force (4)
Forgiveness (8)
France (2)
Freedom (39)
Freedom of speech (12)
Friendship (4)

G
Genius (1)
Gesture (12)
Glory (4)
Gnosticism (16)
God (111)
Good (9)
Grace (5)
Gratitude (4)
Greed (24)

H
Happiness (12)
Hate (2)/Hatred (4)
Heidegger (2)
Hell (4)
Heresy (1)
Hierarchy (56)
History (244)
Homosexuality (1)
Honest (5)
Honor (3)
Hope (22)
Humanism (1)
Humanity (13)
Humility (15)
Humor (2)
Hypocrisy (4)

I
Idealism (3)
Ideas (38)
Ideology (12)
Imagination (18)
Impartiality (1)
Imperialism (1)
Individual (53)
Individualism (16)
Industry (42)
Instinct (8)
Institutions (3)
Intellect (2)
Intellectuals (21)
Intelligence (173)
Intuition (5)
Irony (3)
Islam (1)

J
Jews (2)
Journalism (7)
Justice (16)

K
Knowledge (2)

L
Language (38)
Latin America (1)
Laughter (3)
Law (32)
Laziness (3)
Left (41)
Legitimacy (5)
Leveling (1)
Liberalism (16)
Liberty (39)
Lie (5)
Life (59)
Limits (2)
Lineage (1)
Literature (85)
Localism (4)
Love (45)
Loyalty (6)
Lucidity (10)
Luxury (3)

M
Magic (1)
Malthus (1)
Man (60)
Manners (61)
Marquis de Sade (1)
Marx (6)
Marxism (37)
Masses (24)
Materialism (1)
Matter (1)
Maturity (18)
Meaning (12)
Media (10)
Mediocrity (19)
Memories (2)/Memory (1)
Mentality (5)
Mercy (1)
Meritocracy (6)
Metaphor (3)
Michelangelo (1)
Middle Ages (9)
Miracle (4)
Moderation (1)
Modernism (1)
Monarchy (4)
Monasticism (2)
Moralist (2)
Mortality (1)
Museums (4)
Music (1)
Mystery (9)
Myth (4)

N
Naivete (1)
Nation (9)
Nationalism (15)
Nature (15)
Necessity (1)
Nietzsche (1)
Nostalgia (9)

O
Obscenity (1)
Old age (13)
Oligarchy (1)
Opinions (9)
Optimism (6)
Option (1)
Order (24)
Orientalism (1)
Originality (18)

P
Paganism (3)
Pain (5)
Passion (7)
Patriotism (6)
Peace (4)
Peasant (1)
Pedantry (1)
People (33)
Perfection (4)
Personality (21)
Pessimism (4)
Philosophy (127)
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Picasso (1)
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Plutocracy (3)
Poetry (13)
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Politics (159)
Pornography (6)
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Progressives (42)
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Propaganda (4)
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Psychology (29)
Public opinion (10)

Q
N/A

R
Race (4)
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Reactionary (78)
Reason (37)
Rebellion (3)
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Relativism (1)
Religion (103)
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Revelation (1)
Revolution (82)
Rhetoric (24)
Ridicule (2)
Rights (19)
Ritual (17)
Romanticism (1)

S
Salvation (1)
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Science (42)
Sensibility (22)
Sensuality (27)
Sentimentality (4)
Sentiments (16)
Serenity (3)
Sex (29)
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T
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Truth (58)
Tyranny (23)

U
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Utilitarianism (1)
Utopia (10)

V
Value (29)
Vanity (14)
Vice (74)
Violence (3)
Virtue (50)
Vocation (4)
Vulgarity (40)

W
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West (2)
Will (6)
Wisdom (18)
Women (1)
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World (10)
Writing (81)

X
N/A

Y
Youth (25)

Z
N/A

Miscellaneous (58)