Nicolás Gómez Dávila
25 quotes
Biography
Nicolás Gómez Dávila was a Colombian philosopher and aphorist. He is sometimes referred to as "Nietzsche of the Andes."
"In an age in which the media broadcast countless pieces of foolishness, the educated man is defined not by what he knows, but by what he doesn't know."
"Faith is not knowledge of an object but communion with it."
"La madurez del espíritu comienza cuando dejamos de sentirnos encargados del mundo."
"La autenticidad del sentimiento depende de la claridad de la idea."
"Las ideas confusas y los estanques turbios parecen profundos."
"El filósofo que adopta nociones científicas predeterminó sus conclusiones."
"La técnica no cumple los viejos sueños del hombre, sino los remeda con sorna. (p. 12)"
"Envejecer es catástrofe del cuerpo que nuestra cobardía convierte en catástrofe del alma. (p. 21)"
"En lugar de humanizar la técnica el moderno prefiere tecnificar al hombre. (p. 123)"
"La técnica ofrecería menos peligros si su manipuleo no le fuese tan fácil al imbécil y tan rentable al caco. (p. 179)"
"El moderno llama “cambio” caminar más rápidamente por el mismo camino en la misma dirección. El mundo, en los últimos trescientos años, no ha cambiado sino en ese sentido. La simple propuesta de un verdadero cambio escandaliza y aterra al moderno. (p. 227)"
"Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear conscience."
"In the intelligent man faith is the only remedy for anguish.The fool is cured by “reason,” “progress,” alcohol, work."
"In spiritually arid centuries, the only man to realize that the century is dying from thirst is the man who still harnesses an underground spring."
"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."
"In unremarkable texts we soon trip on phrases that penetrate into us, as if a sword has thrust up to its hilt inside us."
"Everything that makes man feel that mystery envelops him makes him more intelligent."
"To be right is just one more reason not to achieve any success."
"The individual seeks out the heat of the crowd, in this century, to protect himself against the cold emanating from the corpse of the world."
"To demand that the intelligence abstain from judging mutilates its faculty of understanding.It is in the value judgment that understanding culminates."
"It is impossible to convince the fool that there are pleasures superior to those we share with the rest of the animals."
"The anarchy that threatens a degrading society is not its punishment, but its remedy."
"Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal."
"The greatest modern error is not to proclaim that God died, but to believe that the devil has died."
"The curve of man’s knowledge of himself ascends until the 17th century, declines gradually afterwards, in this century it finally plummets"