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When the future of the world worries us- civilization, society, its fate, its destiny- we are fleeing our duty and forgetting the pursuit of our perfection. We are taking refuge in the puerile vanity of feeling “in charge of the world.” But our problem is not the world, it is our intelligence and our sensitivity, it is our soul- however insignificant- irreplaceable, and unique.
I do not want to be like that untouchable, virgin light, unaltered by what it illuminates. Pain, sometimes, wakes us from the winter drowsiness in which we live, and digs and claws into us so that we are born into awareness.
Existence is a merciless struggle of appetites, it is a devouring hunger, an ambition without a rule, without modesty, and endless. The human miracle consists in embroidering, from end to end, on that monotonous, bloody, and beastly plot, some fragile arabesque of beauty or some noble image.
Be tough! Oh no. On the contrary, be flexible, let them bend you- but be ready to whip hard, as you straighten, the hand that tames you.
It is enough for a man to glimpse the nobility that some men are capable of, for everything else to seem insipid.
We are all the promise of something higher.
Our dignity lies in always keeping ourselves worthy of possessing the intellectual gifts that have been denied us.
It is not just having lived that enriches us, just as the money that passes through the hands of the bank teller does not enrich him. What enriches is having lived lucidly, so that each new experience modifies, transforms, expands, enriches the secret wisdom that germinates in our soul.
The truth of an idea matters less than the strength, sincerity, elegance, or nobility of its author.
The only praise more noble than that of the victor to the defeated is that of the defeated to the victor.
The spirit cannot flee from the man in which it dwells, the flesh where it has its seat, its root, and its end. If, forgetful of the eternal law and that binds him to life, man tries to flee to a pure intellectual heaven, then an ever-vigilant vengeance of the spirit punishes him by delivering him to the savagery and debasement his clumsy daring brings. A Louÿs, a Wilde, with the divorce they attempt to establish between art and morality are, in fact, the least wild, the least free spirits that can be imagined.
The smug and prideful subjectivism of the man who believes he is the measure of all things is the opposite of the humble subjectivism of the man who refuses to be an echo.
Beauty, heroism, glory, are all silent flames feeding on man’s heart.
Prepare for defeat with the joy that comes from the hope of victory: I don’t know if it is a healthy strategic axiom, but it is an excellent rule of life.
The spirit, as we know, as it reveals itself to us, is not an immaterial thing, an empty form, mere potency: the spirit has substance, matter, pulp, flesh; yes, the flesh of the spirit.
There are rough and hard soils, rebellious to the plow that breaks them, wealthy in thorns and weeds, but whose subterranean layers hide heavy promise. Sometimes it is enough to dedicate oneself to tireless and humble work, so that one morning you will see emerge, in those wastelands, the green mantle promising the rich grains of autumn.
If all our wisdom is in accepting the inevitable, all our nobility consists in rejecting it.
Man lives off the chaos of his heart and dies from the order life establishes there.
The devil cannot take over the soul that knows how to smile.
With good humor and skepticism it is not possible to be misled or bored.
Reading Homer in the morning, the serenity, calm, and deep sense of moral and physical well-being with which it infuses us, is the best viaticum for enduring the vulgarities of the day.
The idea of “perfection” is a stumbling block for those who do not understand that all perfection is the product of a thousand unsuccessful and ruined attempts.
Tedium is the antonym of solitude.
If, during the slow and gray hours, we kept the memory of our fleeting exaltations, less easily would we stumble into that graceless disgust at life that pollutes our fairness and judgment.
We should not do anything less than what we can do, nor think anything less than what we can think.
The best palliative for anguish is the conviction that God has a sense of humor.
Reason is a hand pressing down on our chest to placate the beating of our wild heart.
A true aristocrat is the one with an inner life. Regardless of origin, rank, or fortune.
The excellence or mediocrity of a person rarely manifests in likewise grand or dull events. No matter: it is the spirit, one’s attitude toward the world, that is valuable and important.
Better never to be anyone, better never to be anything, than to kill our desire, than to quench our thirst.
Tenacious effort and sustained attention temper our spirit, like a bow of precious wood, to shoot its long arrows.
The greatness of man is his exceptional capacity to undertake adventure and risk.
I am only interested in those who eagerly strive to change themselves, yearning to modify something of what they were each day.
Neither the smallness nor the greatness of whatever a soul confronts proves its smallness or greatness. It is in the intensity, strength, power, the tenacity of the dealings themselves that we discover the soul’s true measure.
The soul must remain still, at the center of a perpetually agitated intelligence.
Men are divided into those who complicate their lives to gain their soul and those who waste their souls to make life easier.
The best proof of nobility is not wanting to take revenge on one’s benefactors.
The “Great Men” are luminous spectres that vanish in the light of the divine and in the darkness of the common.
Something divine blossoms in the moment preceding a triumph – and in the moment following a failure.
Given enough time, human nobility occasionally interrupts our everyday disgrace.
In the silence of the night, the spirit forgets the weary body holding it captive, and, conscious of its eternal youth, feels it is the brother of every springtime.
Greatness of size – every modern building shows this – is unrelated to monumental grandeur.
Resistance is futile when everything in the world is conspiring to destroy what we admire.
But we are always left with an incorruptible soul, so that we may contemplate, judge, and disdain.
Rebellion against the order of man is noble, so long as it does not disguise a rebellion against the order of the world.
The world is a broken promise that the noble soul endeavors to restore.
No matter how poor and impoverished it may be, every life has moments worthy of eternity.
Defeats are never final when accepted with good humor.
The noble soul is not the one that can’t be harmed, but the one that quickly heals.
Let us live this life of the militant Christian with the good humor of a guerilla fighter, not with the surliness of a besieged garrison.
Confident in hypothetical “rights,” modern man dismisses the old tools of his triumph. Ashamed of the servitude in which the virility of his spirit germinates, he shuts, with ties that bind, the secret channels of his life blood.
There are men whose conscience accepts their human condition, who proudly and sternly abide the demands of life, who know the compassion and judgment found in a mature pessimism. These men understand that the problem of the human condition is the nature of mankind itself. A restless irony leads their cautious steps through the rough failings of the world, and, as they expect nothing but the indifference of things, the slightest delight moves their grateful hearts. They do not expect softness and goodness from the universe, and as a result, the fragility of beauty, the rarity of greatness, the tragic transience of all earthly splendor, awakens in their hearts the most sincere and attentive respect, a reverent solemnity.
The spirit does not tend to wander freely and unselfconsciously except where its very existence is not threatened. Therefore in present times, we tend toward a cold stoicism or a studied frivolity.
It is not so much happiness or misfortune that matters, as intelligence and grace, energy and heart.
Memory is too cunning and capricious for a repertoire of descriptions or a catalog of facts to rescue from the shipwreck of time and deliver intact, wrapped in protective packaging, the dense, carnal, and juicy memories of hours truly lived.
The memory does not abide our attempts. It should be left to its own wisdom. I do not long to reap memories as consolation during a monotonous end.
If the days are to bring us their heavy vintage in baskets of clusters, we must eat the grapes and wipe the juice from our fingers, without worrying that the delicious fruit deserves more than the grateful hunger of our mouths. Let us strive, only, for the pure sap to swell from the pulp of the present; let every moment open its heavy petals.
Grace is born of all slow, continuous, and certain action toward its own end.
Tolerance, benevolence, sympathy to all, a generous and flexible intelligence; these things may imply an unfortunate degradation of character.
It is in the hard features on the face of some irrepressible adolescent and in the fanatic integrity of their aspirations that the purest light of the spirit is revealed.
Humanity regards with suspicion those who seek to depart from the mundane existence to which others have resigned.
To be a protagonist in the drama of life, it is enough to be a perfect actor, whatever the role you play.
Life has no lesser roles, only lesser actors.
More than in the sure victory or spectacular defeat itself, true nobility lies in a certain way of winning or being defeated.
True greatness does not need others to gaze upon it; ones own light and ones own burning is enough.
There is a way to be wrong or err that reveals the depth and dignity of a soul more effectively than any success.
The souls of our contemporaries all seem equally bland, flabby, soft. Only those who rise to the tormenting demands of the spirit achieve a true personality; they alone have strength and resilience.
The final years of certain lives have not the pathos of a sunset but the fullness of midday.
Let us try to transform the burden that overwhelms us into a force that lifts us up to our salvation.
Although we may have to give in to the torrent of collective stupidities dragging us along in the current, let us not allow ourselves to be dissolved in the mud.
A life lived to the fullest is one that delivers to the grave, after many years, an adolescent whom life did not degrade.
There is no spiritual victory that does not need to be won anew each day.
Few are born noble. Fewer still die noble.
We must welcome providence, without the dread of a pagan or the presumption of a fool.
In order to escape from this prison, one must avoid becoming accustomed to its indisputable comforts.
One must live this life for the moment, and for eternity.
Not for that treacherous thing known as “time.”
Every man lives his life like a cornered animal.
Every so often, along comes a leaflet that buries a library.
Great men can be spoken of with hostility, but not condescension.
We can build nothing upon the goodness of man, but we cannot build without it.
False elegance is preferable to genuine vulgarity.
The man who dwells in an imaginary palace demands more from himself than the one who settles into his hovel.
The soul where secret seeds await is not frightened by the rumbling of thunder that heralds the downpour.
Nothing important is reached simply by walking. But it is not enough to leap across the abyss; one must have wings.
When nothing in society deserves respect, we must carve out for ourselves in solitude new silent loyalties.
A decision that is not a little crazy does not deserve respect.
At any given time, the most important place in the land might be palace, pigsty, or cell.
The soul only gets drunk on the wine of wild grapes.
I am lord of but a tiny territory, but of that territory I’m reichsunmittelbar.
Prayer, war, agriculture are the manly occupations.
An obscurantist cleric of the old metropolitan chapter of Santa Fe,
a plain-spoken church woman from Bogota,
a rugged cattle rancher from the plains,
we are of the same breed.
With my current compatriots I share only my passport.
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: Vintage book cover from Olde Books
