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Intelligence does not announce itself with welcomes and affectionate gestures. Intelligence is treacherous, suspicious, and distrustful, rejects from the start, always disputes and refuses.
Whoever looks without admiration or hatred has not seen.
The modern moron is characterized by the passion with which he proclaims himself free of prejudice.
There is a wise ignorance: that which correctly selects what to ignore.
What defines modern art is its inability to adequately judge. The modern artist gives us everything. All past norms are vitiated and rotten; the artist only regards himself as an artist and does not consider the process of selection or rejection. He becomes the center of the work, and his very act of creation assumes an importance the work itself lacks. Finally, his aesthetic subjectivism rationalizes an inability to objectively define the work.
Only skepticism impedes the unceasing enthronement of idols.
Neither love nor hate indicates anything of ourselves. We can love what we are not, and hate what we are.
Nobody knows how to show us approval: vapid praise hurts us more than criticism.
A certain flexibility of the intelligence is, in some, nothing but cowardice.
It’s not hard to be skilled enough to avoid deception, but who doesn’t let himself be deceived?
Many things seem especially important, when in fact they are only more urgent.
The thought process of the individual “without prejudices” is boring.
Minds that are open to all ideas are not so much hospitable as prostituted.
In order to think, it seems necessary that thought be partial, narrow, unjust.
The unfair judgments of the intelligent man tend to be truths wrapped up in a bad mood.
When I find a man who is impervious to certain clear evidence, I am anxious to inspect myself, suspicious of finding hardened and numbed areas of my own.
“Natural” and “unnatural” do not mean, deep down, anything other than “my own” and “someone else’s.”
The only intelligence without prejudices is the one that knows which it has.
Indifference to that which is trivial: the result of a severe apprenticeship.
After some years, a glance is enough in order to correctly judge a book.
It is common to confuse our ideas with our emotions and to believe, therefore, that we have said something new, when we have only expressed our love or loathing.
The relativity of taste is an excuse adopted by those eras that have bad taste.
Prejudices defend against stupid ideas.
Critical intelligence civilizes the territories that creative intelligence conquers.
The bourgeoisie, in spite of everything, has been the only social class capable of judging itself. Every critic of the bourgeoisie feeds on bourgeois criticisms.
The one who travels between one abyss and the next does so with a caution that seems faint-hearted to the one who walks along a road.
It is difficult to become truly indignant regarding an opinion that doesn’t affect our well-being. Fairness triumphs when our interests or vanity are not compromised. Tolerance is most extended toward obsolete ideals.
To live is to choose. And to choose is to be unfair. Let us opt, then, for the least foolish injustice.
Injustice with ideas is, in philosophy, like injustice in politics: the condition of success.
Intelligence is guided less by reasoning and more by sympathies and aversions.
Manure is useful. The important thing is that one does not use it for food.
The man who is afraid cannot think impartially.
We become interested in a man solely because of his ideas, and end up interested in such ideas because they belong to a certain man.
I’ve always reserved the highest praise for those most unfair to me. Almost furiously do I dedicate myself to finding their hidden qualities and merits. I do not do this out of charity, but pride. I’m not resigned to their having hurt me, nor do I imagine that in praising them I avenge myself. Rather, I prefer to acquit the guilty party so that none may doubt the impartiality of my judgment.
We must take care that our love for diversity does not become so excessive that we only seek it out for the sake of novelty, as this will destroy actual diversity.
Let us have the impudence to declare a book to be bad if it bores us, without searching for further reasons.
The so-called prejudices of the upper class tend to consist of accumulated experiences.
Impartiality is the child of laziness and fear.
To distinguish is the mandate of history.
In aesthetics, value judgment precedes critical study.
Face to face with another, my first reaction is to welcome, accept, believe; thus, no one is more easily seduced than I, nor more easily deceived.
Our selfish peace demands that everyone present their social character impeccably.
To understand, it is necessary, all at once, to have prejudices and yet not substitute them for experience.
Intransigence in politics tends to be an affectation compensating for personal weakness.
To become cultured is to understand that certain kinds of questions are nonsense.
Let us choose without hesitation, but without denying that the arguments we reject often balance those we accept.
The difference between a judgment and a preference is the matrix of morality and aesthetics.
Perhaps life would not be too short for those who know how to do, at all times, what the moment demands. What shortens life are preparations and regrets.
To insist that intelligence refrain from judgment mutilates its ability to understand. It is in the value judgment that understanding culminates.
There are opinions that it is fair to sweep away with respect, but holding the broom firmly.
Spiritual combat requires the elegance of a fencer.
The most disrespectful attitude is that of the man who treats everything with equal respect.
He who does not know how to condemn without fear does not know how to appreciate without trepidation.
We are soon bored by the intelligence of the person who does not share our antipathies.
Far from being “respectable”, almost all opinions deserve to be disrespected.
Nothing is more dangerous than triggering the prejudices of those who say they have none.
Let us not aspire to possess harmonious sets of ideas, but rather correct intellectual reflexes.
Our denouncing the imbecile does not mean we want to abolish him. But the charm of diversity and variety should not prevent us from judging correctly.
Rejection troubles us and approval confuses us.
He who approaches any topic “without prejudice” only speaks nonsense.
Relativism is the solution of a man who is incapable of putting things in order.
To have good taste is, above all, to know what ought to be rejected.
Illusions are deceiving, but not first fruits.
The man who says he respects all ideas is admitting he is ready to give up.
What ceases to be considered qualitatively in order to be considered quantitatively is no longer considered seriously.
Perception of reality, today, is overwhelmed, lost between modern work and modern entertainment.
Never considering the parts but starting from the whole is a horrible guide for action, but the only one that saves us from living in a world without meaning.
A man is only degraded by his prejudices if he believes they are conclusions.
No one is more “respectful of the beliefs of others” than the devil.
The cultured man has the duty to be intolerant.
Taking the measure of a man is such a complex task, we will instead accept what each one affirms or suggests of himself. Thus, the triumph of the impertinent and self-assured man, and the vain fool.
Love and hate do not create, but reveal, those qualities our indifference obscures.
Antipathy and sympathy are the primary attitudes of intelligence.
We must question our taste, but rely on that of no one else.
At first we choose because we admire, and we end up admiring because we chose.
From the sum of all viewpoints, what emerges is not the object in relief, but confusion.
Life is too short to spend time listening to melodic variations on an obvious error.
Periods of tolerance afford humanity the time to forge a new intolerance.
He who shares the prejudices of others believes himself to be free of prejudice.
Impartiality is at times simple insensibility.
What the cultured man finally achieves, after many years, is not so much the possession of the truth as the ability to detect falsehood.
What do your praise matter to me, if I condemn myself, or your insults, if I absolve myself?
Note: Dávila was a Colombian political philosopher and in the Latin church. His aphorisms are presented here for the purposes of enjoyment, study, and historical record, but do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this writer. For more information on Dávila, see this introductory post. For information on how to live your life, go to church and read the Church Fathers/Saints.
Featured image: Antique book cover, the British Library
