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A mediocre intelligence censures those pleasures that are out of reach. To contemplate without envy is the only thing that lessens the bitterness of going without.
I appreciate the poor and I like wealth; I detest poverty and hate the rich.
Among the cultural contributions of Catholicism was a spiritual climate that did not favor economic activity above all.
The praise of greed, disguised as praise for work, did not flourish in medieval times.
The eminent dignity of poverty is that it impedes those full manifestations of vulgarity allowed by wealth.
No one rebels against “authority,” but against those who abuse and usurp it. The poor, in truth, really only hate stupid wealth.
The Church Fathers criticize wealth because it’s the greatest obstacle to the perfection of man and his salvation.
The socialists, on the contrary, do not condemn wealth, only its unequal distribution.
Let’s not credit our intellect for the catastrophes caused when we are blinded by our greed.
Modern man hopes to replace with objects what ages past hoped to obtain from the methodical cultivation of the sentiments.
The only poverty that it is criminal to contemplate calmly is the poverty of others. Do not praise poverty having never been poor; it is a simple rule of honesty. To go without is one of the noblest gestures, but the one who applauds this excessively does so out of a cruel hypocrisy or a secret spite.
The people do not owe any thanks to the bourgeoisie. They have used the masses as a tool in their fights, exploited them mercilessly, and ruled them without a care. If the life of the people has improved during bourgeois hegemony, and the improvement is more than shallow deception, then it’s been impersonal and accidental, or, at best, the work of some bourgeois who abandoned post and found in himself the irresistible light of a new way of life.
When the outsider enters the large city, wealth appears with an abrupt and overwhelming intensity. Ignorant of its connections to the events that generated it, the presence of wealth has the weight of mythical riches, of total availability.
There is only one social class: The bourgeoisie.
The noble? An embarrassed bourgeois.
The proletariat? An exasperated candidate for the bourgeoisie.
Ideas are the only thing in the world that cannot be possessed but by he who is worthy of possessing them.
Indignant with the bourgeois who “eases his conscience” by giving alms from his own pocket, the left-wing Catholic eases his conscience by distributing the wealth of others.
More surely than an accursed wealth, there is an accursed poverty: that of the man who suffers not from “being poor” but from “not being rich,”
that of the man who complacently tolerates every misfortune so long as it is shared by someone else,
that of the man who doesn’t want to abolish poverty, but wants to abolish whatever he covets.
Under the pretext of giving work to the hungry, the progressive markets useless trinkets.
The poor are just another tool of industrialism to enrich the wealthy.
The proletariat does not detest the bourgeoisie for any reason other than the economic difficulty of imitating it.
In politics, patronizing the poor has always been a surefire way to enrich oneself.
A bureaucracy always ends up costing the people more than it costs the upper class.
The “proletariat” appears when the common people adopt the values of the bourgeoisie without owning bourgeois goods.
The patience of the poor, in modern society, is not virtue but cowardice.
The poor man does not envy the rich man because of the noble acts wealth can help bring about, but rather for the degradations it puts within reach.
Wealth makes life easier; poverty, rhetoric.
The life of modern man moves between two poles: business and sex.
The greed of the businessman is not as shocking as the seriousness with which he goes about satisfying that greed.
Material prosperity is not so corrupting as the intellectual and moral prerequisites for achieving it.
He who does not toil without rest in order to satisfy his greed always feels a little guilty in modern society.
Nothing deserves more consideration than those unfortunate ones who must beg, but nothing deserves less respect than the absurd drugs they claim will cure their misfortune.
Envy is not a poor man’s vice, but a rich man’s.
Of a less rich man before a richer man.
Once we notice who obtains what we desire, we don’t care so much to obtain it.
The only man who should speak of wealth or power is the one who did not extend his hand when they were within his reach.
What the economist labels “inflation” is another name for an outbreak of greed.
Man would not feel so sorry for himself if he could bear to merely desire- without pretending he has a right to what he desires.
Idle wealth is that wealth which only serves to produce more wealth.
What concerns the Christ of the Gospels is not the economic situation of the poor man, but he moral condition of the rich man.
When the motive for a decision is not economic, modern man is shocked and frightened.
A society in which all men were wealthy would not be repugnant to the socialist- on the contrary, it would be the ideal.
Nothing is more disgusting to the authentic Christian, nothing more contrary to his spirit, more strange to his nature. More than Christianity criticizes wealth, it praises poverty- and further, more than it criticizes wealth, it criticizes the rich. Christianity aspires to create a society of poor, and socialism a society of the rich. The first one sees wealth as an obstacle, the second as its end.
Love of poverty is Christian, but adulation of the poor is a mere electioneering tactic.
The ferocity of the threatened bourgeoisie is the ferocity of yesterday’s plebs in the face of today’s plebs.
The wealthy man’s sin is not his wealth, but the exclusive importance he attributes to it.
The rich man is not disconcerted by anyone except the man who does not envy him.
The rich are intolerable unless there is an established aristocracy that humiliates them or a militant proletariat that frightens them.
Let’s not lie to one another: the devil can deliver on the material goods he promises.
The issue of increasing inflation could be solved, if the modern mentality did not throw up insurmountable barriers against any attempt to restrain human greed.
The height of envy is expressed by the one who calls for the abolition, not the possession, of whatever he envies.
True eloquence causes the audience to tremble but it does not convince. Without the promise of spoils, no speech is effective.
Every beggar is my brother.
It is impossible to convince a businessman that a profitable activity can be immoral.
I am like the people: I am not indignant regarding luxuries but when they are in unworthy hands.
The rich man in a capitalist society does not know how to put money to its best use: so that he does not have to think about it.
In our time, if a problem doesn’t cause economic troubles, it isn’t seen as being worthy of attention.
Wealth is hopelessly demoralizing when no political function is attached to it.
Even plutocracy is preferable to irresponsible riches.
The ideology of modern man: buy the greatest number of objects, make the largest number of trips, copulate the greatest number of times.
The rich discredit wealth.
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, source unknown
