Don Colacho’s Aphorisms

The voter does not even vote for what he wants; he only votes for what he thinks he wants. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 476

The modern world resulted from the confluence of three independent causal series: the demographic expansion, democratic propaganda, the indu...

A bureaucracy ultimately always ends up costing the people more than an upper class. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 472

The reactionary’s ideal is not a paradisiacal society. It is a society similar to the society that existed in the peaceful intervals of the ...

There exist two interpretations of the popular vote, one democratic, the other liberal. According to the democratic interpretation what the ...

After having been, in the last century, the instrument of political radicalism, universal suffrage is becoming, as Tocqueville foresaw, a co...

It is not in the hands of popular majorities where power is most easily perverted; it is in the hands of the semi-educated. Escolios a un Te...

Monarchs, in almost every dynasty, have been so mediocre that they look like presidents. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 464

To substitute a democratic government for another, non-democratic government comes down to substituting the beneficiaries of the pillaging. ...

When those elected in a popular election do not belong to the lowest intellectual, moral, social strata of the nation, we can be sure that c...

Among those elected by popular suffrage only the imbeciles are respectable, because the intelligent man had to lie in order to be elected. E...

To know an historical episode well consists in not observing it through democratic prejudices. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p....

They started out calling liberal institutions democratic, and they ended up calling democratic despotisms liberal. Escolios a un Texto Implí...

The democrat changes his method in the social sciences when some conclusion makes him uncomfortable. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selecció...

From behind the “will of all” the “general will” pokes its head out. A “will” that is not volition, in reality, but a program. The program o...

Political parties, in democracies, have the function of enlisting citizens so that the political class can direct them as it pleases. Escoli...

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 ...

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

The people never elects. At most, it ratifies. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 387

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