Don Colacho’s Aphorisms

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...

The majority of the tasks that this century’s typical ruler believes he is obliged to assume are nothing more than abuses of power. Escolios...

Each one of man’s new conquests is the new plague that punishes his pride. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 406

Man pays for the powers he acquires over the world by giving up the meaning of things. To construct the theory of wind one must renounce the...

Man conceals under the name of liberty his hunger for sovereignty. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 403

Man already possesses enough power that no catastrophe is improbable. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 392

Power does not corrupt; it frees up latent corruption. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 348

The only man who should speak of wealth or power is one who did not extend his hand when they were within his reach. Escolios a un Texto Imp...

Power more surely corrupts the man who covets it than the man who exercises it. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 310

Power does not necessarily corrupt anyone except the revolutionary who assumes it. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 258

Only by establishing hierarchies can we limit the imperialism of the idea and the absolutism of power. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selecc...

Cynicism is not a measure of astuteness but of impotence. Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección , p. 243

To be effective, the abuse of power presupposes the anonymity of the oppressor or the anonymity of the oppressed. Despotisms fail when unmi...

Popular consent is an index of legitimacy, but not a cause. In the debate over the legitimacy of power neither its origin in the vote nor i...

The legitimacy of power depends not on its origin, but on its ends. Nothing is forbidden to power if its origin grants it legitimacy, as th...

A work of art has, properly speaking, not meaning but power. Its presumed meaning is the historical form of its power on the transitory spec...