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Let us not give anyone the opportunity to be vile. He will take advantage of it.
When facing crude issues, subtlety is difficult.
Rudeness is the passport of our time.
Let us respect the two poles of man: distinct individual, human spirit.
But not that middle zone of the animal with opinions.
Theatrical and spectacular vices, or small and friendly vices, do not humiliate the one who, when speaking of them, implicitly recognizes they participate in them in some way. But there are others- vile, pathetic, with a pitiful look, viscous, glutinous, greasy, greyish. Those vices, we prefer to silence them. We prefer our silence to suggest naivete, we prefer to be deceived, to deny with a sharp phrase our knowledge or understanding of such vices. And here I speak only in general and vague terms.
“Purity,” “poetry,” “authenticity,” “dignity,” are key words in today’s vocabulary to discuss pornographic stories.
The only 18th-century author to be revived by the admiration of our contemporaries has been de Sade.
Visitors to a palace who admire nothing but the latrines.
From the slums of life, one does not return wiser, but dirtier.
The frankness of those who do not respect themselves becomes a simple lack of shame.
Dull, like obscenity.
Rudeness is not evidence of authenticity, but of rudeness.
Vulgarity consists of respecting that which does not deserve respect, just as much as it consists of disrespecting that which ought to be respected.
Obsession with eroticism is the rabid recourse of souls and times that are in agony.
Obscenity is the salt of vulgar delicacies.
Man has not yet documented all the depravity of his soul. I wouldn’t suggest that there are unknown lands, but un-triangulated lands. In truth, every vice, even those we call bizarre, is a themepark frequented by those family types you see in Sunday crowds. Ethics professors pretend to be unaware of vices that escape their classifications, and moralists have shied away from describing those that do not lend themselves to a subtle play of words.
In the unconscious there is something low, animal, and vile that disgusts every noble soul.
The ability to consume pornography is the distinctive characteristic of the imbecile.
Modern society works feverishly to put vulgarity within everyone’s reach.
Perversity always arouses the secret admiration of the idiot.
This era has the privilege of inventing the pedantry of obscenity.
What daring and courage is required today in order to not contribute to filth!
The writer’s orgasms do not interest the reader nearly as much as he imagines.
Theoretical condescension to vice is not proof of liberality and elegance, but of vulgarity.
To be a prude, puritanical, is the proper attitude of a decent man in today’s world.
This era has managed to turn sex into a trivial practice and an odious topic.
Immodesty dissolves sensuality.
Vulgarity itself is less irritating than its defense and praise.
Since a certain stealthy shrewdness veils low and vile things, it is common to consider them profound. Some believe they are subtly explaining the nuance of some noble thing by analyzing the greasy film it leaves behind, when in truth such inspections reach only a false depth.
The modern writer forgets that only allusions to the gestures of love capture its essence.
A perfect penal code would include the death penalty for vulgarity.
The thoughts men have of women are trivialities wrapped in rudeness.
Laughter is evidence of a persistent barbarism.
The smile is the dawn and clear noon of the civilized.
Let us refuse to comment on the issue that is passionate about vulgarity.
A motto for the young leftist: “revolution and pussy.”
A ridiculous sense of shame will not allow the intelligent writer today to deal with anything but obscene topics.
But since he has learned not to be ashamed of anything, he should not be ashamed of decent sentiments.
This foolish era allows the vulgarity of eroticism to deprive it of the delights of immodesty.
That insults have become routine proves our ignorance of the art of living.
Oppression begins, according to the modern, anywhere some kind of filth is prohibited.
Today, the one who does not shout is neither heard nor understood.
Vulgarity is not a product of the common people but a byproduct of bourgeois prosperity.
The absence of God does not make way for the tragic so much as the sordid.
Wisdom, in this age, consists above all in knowing how to bear vulgarity without becoming upset.
In our time, the one who protests against the abject is said to have no common sense.
Few take note of the only pastime which does not become tiresome: trying to be, year after year, a little less ignorant, a little less coarse, a little less vile.
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: The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. source
