#2,515

The years do not deplume us of illusions but of stupidities.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,514

The most dispiriting [kind of] solitude is not one lacking in neighbors, but one deserted by God.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,513

What is difficult is not to strip naked, but to walk without taking pleasure in going around naked.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,512

Man pursues desire and only captures nostalgia.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,511

A phrase should ruffle its wings like a falcon in captivity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,510

He who knows how to prefer does not exclude.
He puts in order.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,509

The secret force behind technology appears to be the intention to make things insipid.
The flower without fragrance is its emblem.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 404

#2,508

Certain traumas to a people’s soul appear to be the only acquired trait that is inherited.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,507

To write honestly for the rest, one must write fundamentally for oneself.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,506

True reading is an escape.
The other type is an occupation.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,505

To restore an old liturgical gesture in a new context can amount to heresy.
To receive communion standing today, for example, becomes a gesture of pride.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,504

The psychological study of conversions only produces flowers of rhetoric.
God’s ways are secret.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,503

History allows for understanding, but it does not require absolution.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,502

Man conceals under the name of liberty his hunger for sovereignty.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 403

#2,501

Eroticism and Gnosticism are the individual’s recourse against the anonymity of mass society.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 402

#2,500

Agreement is eventually possible between intelligent men, because intelligence is a conviction they share.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 402

#2,499

Evil does not triumph where good has not become insipid.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 402

#2,498

Only churchmen’s hands knew, for a period of a few centuries, how to beautify conduct and the soul.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 402

#2,497

The separation of Church and State can suit the Church, but it is disastrous for the State because it delivers it over to pure Machiavellianism.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 402

#2,496

No one grants humanity certain extreme liberties except someone indifferent to its destiny.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,495

If dignity does not suffice to recommend modesty, vanity should.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,494

Modern man is never prepared, either morally or intellectually, to slip and fall with the greatest dignity possible.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,493

The man who wants to avoid grotesque collapses should not look for anything to fulfill him in space and time.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,492

As long as they do not take him seriously, the man who says the truth can live for a while in a democracy.
Then, the hemlock.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,491

Not the man who has disciplined only his intelligence is cultivated, but rather the man who also disciplines the movements of his soul and even the gestures of his hands.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,490

It is by means of intelligence that grace saves us from the worst disgraces.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 401

#2,489

In every individual sleeps the germ of the vices and the mere echo of the virtues.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,488

In a hierarchical society imagination’s force is disciplined and does not unhinge the individual as it does in a democratic society.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,487

Approaching religion through art is not the caprice of an aesthete: aesthetic experience spontaneously tends to expand into a presentiment of religious experience.
From an aesthetic experience one returns as from a sighting of numinous footprints.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,486

Man can only be “faber” of his misfortune.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,485

Great stupidities do not come from the people.
First, they have seduced intelligent men.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,484

The growing difficulty of recruiting priests should embarrass humanity, not disquiet the Church.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,483

Discipline, order, hierarchy, are aesthetic values.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 400

#2,482

Depravity always arouses the secret admiration of the imbecile.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 399

#2,481

In a fiery intelligence the materials are not fused in a new alloy; they are integrated into a new element.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 399

#2,480

By merely looking at the face of the modern man one infers the mistake in attributing ethical importance to his sexual behavior.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 399

#2,479

Humanity is not ungovernable: it merely happens that rarely does a man govern who deserves to govern.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 399

#2,478

Political scientists learnedly analyze the squawking, howling, [and] growling of the animals on board, while the maelstrom of the masses silently pushes the ship from one shore to another.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 399

#2,477

History exhibits two types of anarchy: that which emanates from a plurality of forces and that which derives from a plurality of weaknesses.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 399

#2,476

We must remind those who infer from the social utility of myths the social utility of lies that myths are useful thanks to the truths they express.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 398

Merry Christmas!

...or happy Christmas, for all you non-Americans out there.

Today we celebrate the day when "all truth [was] born between an ox and an ass" in Bethlehem.

#2,475

The descriptive use of social anecdotes has more characterological exactitude than statistical percentages.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 398

#2,474

Aristocracies are proud, but insolence is a plutocratic phenomenon.
The plutocrat believes that everything can be sold; the aristocrat knows that loyalty cannot be bought.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 398

#2,473

Man rarely understands that nothing is permanent, but that some things are immortal.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 398

#2,472

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

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 398

#2,471

To change thoughts repeatedly is not to evolve. To evolve is to develop the infinitude of the same thought.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 398

#2,470

A journalist is someone for whom it suffices, in order to speak about a book, to know of the book’s topic only what the book he is speaking about says.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 397

#2,469

The only certain patrimony after a few years is the load of stupidities that chance prevented us from committing.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 397

#2,468

The curve of man’s knowledge of himself ascends until the 17th century, declines gradually afterwards, in this century it finally plummets.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 397

#2,467

If time, subjectively, makes us change taste, it also, objectively, makes things change flavor.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 367

#2,466

When it comes to political matters, there are few who even in private do not argue at the level of a public meeting.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 397

#2,465

What bodes ill is not great ambition, but the teeming of paltry ambitions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 397

#2,464

The government of these American fiefdoms has been assumed since Independence by the mestizo descendants of Ginés de Pasamonte.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 397

#2,463

The “ownership mentality,” so sharply censured by modern man, has transformed into a usufruct mentality that avidly exploits persons, works, things, without reserve, without pity, without shame.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,462

One soon turns one’s back on the art of the end of this century not because it shocks one with the scandal of what is unusual, but because it overwhelms one with the tediousness of what has already been seen.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,461

In every ovation there is a claque.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,460

The barriers life frequently throws across our way are not obstacles for us to demolish; they are silent warnings that divert us onto the right path.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,459

The soul grows full of weeds unless the intelligence inspects it daily like a diligent gardener.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,458

Moral indignation is not truly sincere unless it literally ends in vomiting.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,457

At a certain profound level every accusation they make against us hits the mark.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 396

#2,456

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

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,455

The predominance of the social sciences hides more and more from contemporary historiography the difference between ages.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,454

The absence of legal hierarchies facilitates the rise of the less scrupulous.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,453

A prolonged childhood—permitted by industrial society’s current prosperity—redounds merely in a growing number of infantilized adults.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,452

The public does not begin to welcome an idea except when intelligent contemporaries begin to abandon it.
No light reaches the masses but that of dead stars.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,451

Conformism and non-conformism are symmetrical expressions of a lack of originality.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,450

Goodness and beauty are not mutually exclusive except where goodness serves as a pretext for envy and beauty for luxury.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 395

#2,449

Civilizations enter into agony when they forget that there exists not merely an aesthetic activity, but also an aesthetic of activity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 394

#2,448

Authentic rewards have the privilege of not being coveted except by tiny minorities.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 394

#2,447

The Christian faith in the last centuries has lacked intelligence, and Christian intelligence has lacked faith.
Either it has not known how to be bold, or it has feared to be so.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 394

#2,446

The evolution of Christian dogma is less evident than the evolution of Christian theology.
We Catholics with little theology believe, in the end, the same thing as the first slave who converted in Ephesus or Corinth.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 394

#2,445

Loyalty to a doctrine ends in adherence to the interpretation we give it.
Only loyalty to a person frees us from all self-complacency.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 394

#2,444

The fool does not concede superiority except to one who exhibits idiotic refinements.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 394

#2,443

Men can be divided into the many altruists, busy correcting everyone else, and the few egoists, busy tidying themselves up.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,442

That the history of the Church contains sinister chapters and idiotic chapters is obvious, but a manly Catholicism should not make its contrite confession by exalting the modern world.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,441

We should ask the majority of people not to be sincere, but mute.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,440

Upon finding himself perfectly free, the individual discovers that he has not been relieved of everything, but despoiled.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,439

Avoid repeating a word is the favorite rule of rhetoric of those who do not know how to write.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,438

Words do not decipher the mystery, but they do shed light on it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,437

History shows that man’s good ideas are accidental and his mistakes methodical.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 393

#2,436

Man already possesses enough power that no catastrophe is improbable.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,435

To scandalize anyone today, it suffices to suggest to him that he renounce something.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,434

In the modern world it is not contrary ideas that confront each other but mere candidates for the possession of the same goods.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,433

Socialism makes use of greed and misery; capitalism makes use of greed and the vices.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,432

Congenital leftism is a disease that is cured in a Communist clime.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,431

Nothing appears more obsolete to humanity during its drinking bouts than the truths it confesses again when it recovers its judgment.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,430

Only the distortions of a political idea caused by the circumstances in which it acts are recorded in history.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 392

#2,429

Each gesture of pride stops up a spring.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,428

Only God and the central point of my consciousness are not accidental to me.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,427

The being one finds oneself to be is also in the end a stranger to us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,426

It turns out it is impossible to convince a businessman that a profitable activity can be immoral.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,425

Man can be granted all types of liberties, except that of dressing himself and of edifying his taste.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,424

Human stupidity is so monotonous that not even a long experience adds to our collection of stupidities.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,423

The sight of the modern world is so repugnant that ethical imperatives are becoming certainties in the indicative for us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 391

#2,422

Few take note of the only diversion which does not become tiring: to try to be year after year a little less ignorant, a little less coarse, a little less vile.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,421

An extensive card catalog, an imposing library, a serious university, produce today those avalanches of books that contain not one error nor one insight.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,420

The indemonstrability of values makes obvious opinions seem daring to one who does not see values.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,419

The frightened progressive has neither compassion nor dignity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,418

One must live for the moment and for eternity.
Not for the disloyalty of time.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,417

Countries with an impoverished literature have an insipid history.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,416

The truth resides in the indeterminate area where opposing principles interweave and correct each other.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 390

#2,415

The impertinent attempt to justify “the ways of God to man” transforms God into a frustrated schoolmaster who invents educational games that are both cruel and childish.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,414

The worst sort of irresponsible man is one who assumes any responsibility without being forced to do so.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,413

After a certain age we should not look at each other except in dim light.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,412

Museums are the tourist’s punishment.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,411

In groups of humans, only the defects of those who join the group get added up.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,410

To understand is finally to make fact after fact coincide with our own mystery.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,409

The evolution of works of art into objects of art and of objects of art into investments or into articles for consumption is a modern phenomenon.
A process that does not evidence a diffusion of the aesthetic, but rather the culmination of contemporary economism.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 389

#2,408

It is not to increasing our knowledge to which we may aspire, but to documenting our ignorance.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,407

Dialogue with the imbecile poses difficulties: we never know where we harm him, when we scandalize him, [or] how we please him.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,406

Ethical conduct is the aesthetically satisfactory conduct.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,405

The only societies more odious than those which infuriate the rebellious youth are those which he innocently helps to construct.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,404

To win a bet, in our time, one must bet for the individuals or the causes which one would like to see lose.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,403

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

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,402

Man frequently owes to his defects the failures he avoids.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 388

#2,401

The people never elects.
At most, it ratifies.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,400

What cloisters us gives us the chance to ennoble ourselves.
Even when it is a simple rain shower.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,399

The modern theologian’s pirouettes have not gained him one conversion more, nor one apostasy less.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,398

In order to escape from this prison, one must learn not to come to an arrangement with its indisputable comforts.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,397

The modern poet is a peasant who despondently sows a plot of eroded soil.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,396

The ability to consume pornography is the distinctive characteristic of the imbecile.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,395

Intelligence isolates; stupidity brings together.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,394

More than a breeze of betrayal, there howls around the modern clergy a hurricane of stupidity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 387

#2,393

With somebody for whom certain terms must be defined one must speak of some other topic.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,392

Whoever stuffs his text full of idiomatic expressions creates linguistic folklore for literary tourists.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,391

Each new generation, in this century, enters shouting that it has something new to do and exits saying that it only has something new to lament.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,390

The people with whom we speak every day and our favorite authors cannot belong to the same zoological species.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,389

Our own cross burdens us less than the one we cannot help our beloved to carry.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,388

Every burden soon oppresses us, if we do not have Jesus as our Cyrenean.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,387

Whoever defeats a noble cause is the one who has really been defeated.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 386

#2,386

Whoever is not ready to prefer defeat in certain circumstances sooner or later commits the very crimes he denounces.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,385

The invention is invented once for all times.
The idea must be reinvented each time.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,384

As long a party keeps the same name, its programs can change.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,383

Given the rapid obsolescence of everything in our age, man lives today in a psychologically briefer time.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,382

When religion and aesthetics are divorced from each other, it is not known which is corrupted sooner.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,381

The only possible progress is the internal progress of each individual.
A process that concludes with the end of each life.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,380

An obscurantist canon of the old metropolitan chapter of Santa Fe, a brusque church lady from Bogotá, an uncouth cattle rancher from the savanna, we are of the same ilk.
With my current compatriots I share only my passport.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 385

#2,379

The journalist arrogates to himself the importance of what he reports on.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,378

Angels and demons both meet with disappointment at the deathbed of a thoroughly modern man in his death throes: they find barely any trace of the soul that evaporated years ago.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,377

Among the vices of democracy one must count the impossibility of someone occupying an important position there without it being his ambition.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,376

Modern noise deafens the soul.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,375

To have good taste is above all to know what we should reject.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,374

The fool loses his hopes, never his illusions.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,373

It has required a titanic effort to make the modern world so ugly.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,372

Intelligence is the only art that can survive in any historical climate.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 384

#2,371

Where we imprudently tolerate agglomerations, order and tyranny in the end unfortunately coincide.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 383

#2,370

Indoctrinating experts is notoriously easy.
The expert, in effect, attributes to every emphatic dictum the same authority as he attributes to the procedures he follows.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 383

#2,369

The most recent generations are particularly boring: believing in effect that they invented violence and sex, they copulate doctrinairely and doctrinairely kill.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 383

#2,368

Whoever seeks to mount guard in the defiles of his soul must learn to dwell between rocky crags.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 383

#2,367

It is not to realize his dreams for which man can strive, but to appear worthy of their realization.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 383

#2,366

It never again mattered to me where I lived after I saw the spacious, dilapidated homes pass away and the wide open, deserted fields of my infancy covered with industrial and human filth.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 383

#2,365

One who remembers the smells of grass trampled under his bare feet never breathes well among buildings.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,364

The soul becomes desiccated when it lives in a world that is almost exclusively manufactured.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,363

The celebrities of our time are permeated with the odor of the publicity laboratories where they are created.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,362

Originality is not something that is sought, but something that is found.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,361

Even the least foolish usually do not know the conditions of what they wish for and the consequences of what they admit.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,360

A noble society does not wait for catastrophes to discipline it before it disciplines itself.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,359

Where the customs and the laws permit everyone to aspire to everything, everyone lives a frustrated life, no matter what position he comes to occupy.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 382

#2,358

Allusion is the only way to express what is intimate without distorting it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,357

To be a reactionary is to understand that man is a problem without a human solution.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,356

The rich man, in capitalist society, does not know how to put money to its best use: so that he does not have to think about it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,355

Society’s most serious ailments usually come from the imprudence with which they are treated.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,354

Their accommodations to practice leave nothing of political theories but a simple memory.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,353

The sciences tend to become bureaucratic, just like everything else.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,352

Very few carry themselves with the discretion befitting their insignificance.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,351

To accuse the aphorism of expressing only part of the truth is tantamount to supposing that a verbose discourse can express all of it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 381

#2,350

In order to live peacefully with one’s neighbor, there is nothing better than not having a single postulate in common.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,349

The senile sclerosis of intelligence does not consist in the inability to change ideas, but in the inability to change the level at which we have them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,348

The rich man is not disconcerted by anyone except by someone who does not envy him.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,347

Modern criticism usually credits the author’s modest lineage to him as a literary merit.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,346

Listening to one’s neighbor is one of the most tiresome works of mercy.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,345

Life is delightful at those moments when one is allowed to think or dream.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,344

Serenity is the state of mind of one who has entrusted God, once and for all, with everything.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,343

The anonymity of modern society obliges everyone to claim to be important.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 380

#2,342

A sentiment is not sincere unless its manifestations deceive the professional psychologist.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,341

The mechanisms of modern society encourage the annoying virtues and punish the endearing vices.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,340

The man who invents a new machine invents for humanity a new concatenation of new forms of servitude.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,339

Every cry of human pride ends as a cry of anguish.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,338

Familiarity, with persons or objects, is the only thing that does not become tiring.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,337

Poetry rescues things by reconciling matter and spirit in the metaphor.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,336

The modern mentality’s conceptual pollution of the world is more serious than contemporary industry’s pollution of the environment.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 379

#2,335

The West withers every non-Western soul that touches it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 378

#2,334

Capitalism is the monstrous distortion of private property by liberal democracy.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 378

#2,333

Man does not do the worst things unless he declares that his conscience obliges him to do them.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 378

#2,332

A contemporary literary review never allows one to figure out whether the critic believes he lives among geniuses or whether he prefers not to have enemies.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 378

#2,331

Earth will never be a paradise, but it could perhaps be prevented from coming closer and closer to being a vulgar imitation of hell.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 378

#2,330

The worst rhetoric is cultivated in democratic nations, where all formalism must pretend to be a spontaneous and sincere attitude.
Monarchical rhetoric is a formalism that recognizes and admits what it is, like etiquette.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 378