Selected aphorisms of Nicolas Gómez Dávila
Jun 19, 2026
Nothing is explained clearly except by the intelligent man who disagrees.
Only he that suggests more than he expresses can be reread.
Certain ideas are only clear when formulated, others only when they are alluded to.
The only indices of civilization are the clarity, lucidity, order, good manners of everyday prose.
Our neighbor irritates us because he seems to us like a parody of our own defects.
History seems to come down to two alternating periods: a sudden religious experience that propagates a new human type, and the slow process of dismantling that type.
Writing is the only way to distance oneself from the century in which it was one’s lot to be born.
Phrases are pebbles that the writer tosses into the reader’s soul.
The diameter of the concentric waves they displace depends on the dimensions of the pond.