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The human condition is not some external circumstance in which man happens to find himself. Man is not a pure essence subjected to an impure and alien condition- man is the very impurity himself.
Man is his condition, shattered and broken.
Those who seek a solution to their problems in religion are mistaken. Religion is not a set of solutions, but a set of problems.
Without a doubt, the problems we are dealing with today are the same problems dealt with by Plato.
Countless problems stem from the method with which we pretend to solve them.
We always prefer the relief that aggravates over the remedy that cures.
What the aphorism offers is the evidence of a problem- a constant, tireless, permanent searching.
The belief in the fundamental solubility of problems is a characteristic particular to the modern world.
That all conflict between principles is simply a misunderstanding, that there will be aspirin for every headache.
Modern conflict springs less from the desire to conquer the enemy than a desire to suppress conflict.
In our time, fewer wars have been motivated by spoils, ideology, or adventure than by idyllic fantasies of peace.
To the stark dilemmas posed by the spirit, history offers evasive and mocking solutions.
In every age, a minority live today’s problems and a majority yesterday’s.
After solving a problem, humanity imagines it has found in analogous solutions the key to all problems.
Every authentic solution is followed by a train of grotesque solutions.
The impossibility of finding solutions teaches us that we should devote ourselves to ennobling the problems.
To the many problems that distress man, religion may provide some solution, or, rather, a promise of solutions, but it is not the function of religion to offer a system that integrates our concerns and satisfactorily orders them. Rather, it is meant to awaken us before a new presence so that we throw ourselves into new problems.
Nothing is easier than solving problems that do not arise.
Modern man already knows that political solutions are ridiculous and suspects economic solutions are as well.
When we see that man cannot calculate the consequences of his actions, political problems do not lose their importance, but we lose interest in the proposed solutions.
Contrary to so many, who, upon hearing a tragic or shameful story, exclaim with spontaneous contempt: Ah! If it had been me! I would have done things differently!; I always mutter: Ah! I would have found a way to make it worse!
The only precaution is to pray on time.
Demonstrating to the disturbed soul that we understand his problem is to render it insoluble. A perplexed expression dissolves anguish.
Man closes his eyes before the real problems, just as the commentator before the true difficulties of a text.
The tragedy of the left? To diagnose the disease correctly, but to aggravate it with their therapy.
The “solutions” that cause modern man to swell with pride seem within a few years inconceivably stupid.
The true problem does not demand that we try to solve it but that we try to live it.
To be modern is not to have overcome yesterday’s problems; it is to believe they have been surpassed.
Great intellectual tasks are not accomplished by one who deliberately undertakes them, but by one who modestly seeks to resolve personal problems.
The man who does not claim to offer panaceas is not obliged to answer questions to which he has no reply.
Man does not want to solve his problems so much as believe they have been resolved.
That Christianity does not solve social problems is no reason to apostatize except for those who forget it never promised to solve them.
We solve some problems by proving they do not exist; others we deny they exist so that we do not have to solve them.
Each day, less and less do I expect to ever meet someone who does not harbor the certainty that they know how the world’s ills might be cured.
Metaphysical problems do not haunt man so that he will solve them, but so that he will live them.
One’s personal set of authentic solutions has the coherence not of a system but of a symphony.
The fool exclaims that we are denying the problem when we reveal the falsity of his favorite solution.
Knowing which reforms the world needs is the only unequivocal symptom of stupidity.
As a new problem will always arise from a problem solved, wisdom consists not in solving problems but in taming them.
Practicality will induce us to link arms with those we’d otherwise not even want to brush by on the street.
The fashion of the day embraces those philosophies that cautiously sidestep problems.
Problems, too, are divided into social classes. There are noble problems, plebeian problems, and innumerable middling problems.
Faith in God does not solve problems, but makes them laughable. The serenity of the faithful is not a presumption of knowledge, but a fullness of trust.
The man who errs out of goodwill is recognized both for his good intent and his error.
What is difficult about every moral or social problem is that solutions are not a matter of all or nothing, but of more or less.
Modern man comforts himself by thinking that “everything has a solution.”
As if there are no sinister solutions!
Nothing is more interesting than solitary meditation on insoluble problems. And nothing is more tedious than arguing about them with others.
Human problems are neither precisely definable, nor remotely solvable.
He who expects Christianity to solve them has ceased to be a Christian.
It is never possible to solve a problem well, but it is always possible to solve it worse.
In our time, the efficacy of an intelligent action is so uncertain that it is not worth the trouble to tame our wildest fantasies.
Man crawls through disappointments supported by small, trivial successes.
Temporary indifference to a problem is often called a “solution.”
The American is insufferable not because he believes he is important as an individual, but because he has, as an American, the solution to every problem.
The most severe ailments in society are typically made so by the recklessness with which they are treated.
Social problems cannot be solved.
But we can lessen them by avoiding a determined elimination of one, which tends to simply aggravate them all.
The solution that is not ready to laugh at itself ends up dehumanizing or maddening.
By experiencing his problems without any religious or ethical framework, modern man drains them of any kind of meaning.
The frequent barriers thrown in our way by life are not always obstacles for us to demolish. Often they are silent warnings, directing us to the right path.
To be a reactionary is not to believe in certain solutions, but to have an acute sense of the complexity of the problems.
Be very wary as to who you think has found a solution.
Christianity does not “solve problems.” It merely encourages us to approach them from a higher level.
Those who claim that it does solve problems ironically become entangled in every supposed solution.
Nothing is so foolish as the common disdain of the truism.
Without a doubt, the commonplace offers trivial propositions, but to disdain them because of this triviality is to confuse the insufficient solution they propose with their authentic and tireless interrogations of the problem. Commonplaces do not deal with the solutions of anyone, but the problems of everyone.
Problems are not solved; they merely go out of fashion.
Intelligence hastens to solve problems that life has not yet raised. Wisdom is the art of stopping it.
Since so many “certain victories” have ended in failure, why should a certain failure not culminate in victory?
Nothing is more dangerous than solving temporary problems with permanent solutions.
We often discover, as the years go by, that deliberate solutions are more intolerable than the problems.
Those problems that anguish us are the ones that save us from the problems that would defile us.
What unfathomable pessimism, what sickly despair, presupposes the belief in an adequate earthly solution!
Our misery proceeds less from our problems than from the solutions we know are suitable for them.
Our burdens soon overwhelm us, if we do not have Jesus as our Cyrenean.
Intelligence is not a matter of finding a solution, but of not losing sight of the problems.
Propose solutions?
As if the world is not drowning in solutions!
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 marbled end-papers.
