To compromise is to sacrifice a distant
good to an immediate urgency. (I, 13)
With God there are only
individuals. (I, 16)
Every goal other than God dishonors us.
(I, 18)
An “ideal society” would be the graveyard of human
greatness. (I, 19)
Democratic parliaments are not places where
debate occurs but where popular
absolutism registers its edicts.
(I, 20)
Love of the people is an aristocratic calling. The
democrat only loves the people at election time. (I, 21)
The
individual shrinks in proportion as the state grows. (I, 21)
The
authenticity of the feeling depends on the clarity of the thought.
(I, 24)
To refuse to wonder is the mark of the beast. (I,
25)
The one who renounces seems weak to the one incapable of
renunciation. (I, 25)
Genuine allegiance to an idea surpasses
every psychological or social motivation. (I, 28)
Vulgarity
consists in pretending to be what we are not. (I, 37)
The
incoherent interlocutor is more irritating than the hostile one. (I,
39)
The genuine coherence of our ideas does not come from the
reasoning that ties them together, but from the spiritual impulse
that gives rise to them. (I, 40)
Confused ideas and muddy
ponds appear deep. (I, 40)
A philosopher who adopts scientific
notions predetermines his conclusions. (I, 47)
To think like
our contemporaries is a recipe for prosperity and stupidity. (I,
53)
All literature is contemporary to the reader who knows how
to read. (I, 57)
A happy existence is as much of a model as a
virtuous one. (I, 62)
To depend on God alone is our true
autonomy. (I, 65)
Violence is not necessary to destroy a
civilization. Each civilization dies from
indifference toward the
unique values which created it. (I, 70)
Perfection is the
point where what we can do and what we want to do coincide with
what
we ought to do. (I, 113)
Modern man does not love, but seeks
refuge in love; does not hope, but seeks refuge
in hope; does not
believe, but seeks refuge in a dogma. (I, 212)
Every marriage
of an intellectual with the communist party ends in adultery. (I,
237)
Modern man destroys more when he builds than when he
destroys. (I, 251)
Contemporary literature, in each and every
epoch, is the worst enemy of culture. A
reader’s limited time is
wasted in reading a thousand books that blunt his critical sense and
damage his literary sensibility. (I, 258)
The Biblical prophet
doesn’t predict the future, but bears witness to the presence of
God in history. (I, 262)
Civilization is a poorly fortified
encampment in the midst of rebellious tribes. (I, 268)
In an
age in which the media broadcast countless pieces of foolishness, the
educated man is defined not by what he knows, but by what he doesn’t
know.
Contemporary political ideologies are false in what they
affirm and true in what they deny. (I, 275)
Ritual is an
instrument of the sacred. Every innovation is a profanation. (I,
299)
The supreme aristocrat is not the feudal lord in his
castle but the contemplative monk in his cell. (I, 306)
All
epochs exhibit the same vices, but not all show the same virtues. In
every age there are hovels, but only in some are there palaces. (I,
308)
The modern tragedy is not the tragedy of reason defeated
but of reason triumphant. (I, 308)
Philosophy is a literary
genre. (I, 312)
The study of myths belongs to metaphysics, not
to psychology. (I, 314)
The writer who loves or hates is less
persuasive than the one who loves and hates. (I, 315)
Modern
man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from
touching the walls of his dungeon. (I, 315)
To have opinions
is the best way to escape the obligation of thinking. (I, 324)
God
is a nuisance for modern man. (I, 332)
The “ivory tower”
has a bad reputation only among the inhabitants of
intellectual
hovels. (I, 338)
The Church founders without
the ballast of “average Christians.” (I, 347)
I distrust
every idea that doesn’t seem obsolete and grotesque to my
contemporaries. (I, 353)
The Church used to absolve sinners;
today it has the gall to absolve sins. (I, 378)
There are not
a few French historians who think that the history of the world is an
episode in the history of France. (I, 386)
Many love humanity
only in order to forget God with a clear conscience. (I,
388)
Nothing multiplies the number of fools so much as the
example of celebrities. (I, 393)
Civilization seems to be the
invention of a species now extinct. (I, 398)
In the Christian
obsessed with “social justice” it isn’t easy to discern whether
charity is flourishing or faith is expiring. (I, 403)
Egalitarian
ideas distort our perception of the present and, in addition,
mutilate our vision of the past. (I, 448)
The punishment of the idealist consists
in the triumph of his cause. (II, 22)
To be civilized is to be
able to criticize what we believe without ceasing to believe in
it.
(II, 25)
Philosophy’s aim is not to paint new objects
but to give their true color to familiar objects. (II, 31)
Those
who proclaim that the noble is despicable end up by proclaiming that
the
despicable is noble. (II, 36)
Poetry is the fingerprint
of God in human clay. (II, 45)
Every solution seems trivial to
the one who does not understand the problem. (II, 47)
The
cultured man has the obligation to be intolerant. (II, 58)
The
stupidity of an old man imagines itself to be wisdom; that of an
adult, experience; that of a youth, genius. (II, 64)
Stupid
ideas are immortal. Each new generation invents them anew. (II,
80)
He who speaks of his “generation” admits that he’s
part of a herd. (II, 81)
For the myth of a past golden age,
present day humanity substitutes the myth of a
future plastic age.
(II, 88)
To be authentically modern is, in each and every age,
a sign of mediocrity. (II, 88)
Only the problems of his time
seem important to the fool. (II, 101)
Nations and individuals,
with rare exceptions, comport themselves with decency only when
circumstances permit no other choice. (II, 105)
Many things
seem defensible, until we look at their defenders. (II, 115)
Of
God one doesn’t speak with any precision or seriousness except in
poetry. (II, 125)
The imagination is the only place in the
universe where it is possible to live. (II, 132)
Optimism is
never faith in progress, but hope for a miracle. (II, 135)
The
importance of an event is inversely proportional to the space which
the
newspapers devote to it. (II, 140)
An individual
declares himself a member of some group or other with the goal
of
demanding in its name what he is ashamed to claim in his own
name. (II, 142)
Politics is the pastime of empty souls. (II,
145)
To have a dialog with those who do not share our basic
premises is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time. (II,
158)
Faith is not knowledge of an object but communion with
it. (II, 169)
Poetry has died, asphyxiated by metaphors. (II,
175)
It is unjust to reproach the writers of today with bad
taste, when the very notion of taste is dead. (II, 175)
If we
believe in God, we should not say “I believe in God,” but “God
believes in me.”
It is easier to forgive certain dislikes
than to share certain enthusiasms. (II, 190)
The anger of
imbeciles is less frightening than their benevolence. (II,
191)
Total freedom of expression does not compensate for lack
of talent. (II, 194)
A cultivated soul is one where the din of
the living does not drown out the music of the dead. (II, 195)
“To
be useful to society” is the ambition, or excuse, of a prostitute.
(II, 196)
Whoever betrays us never forgives us for his act of
betrayal. (II, 197)
Every non-hierarchical society is divided
in two. (II, 201)
The modern world seems invincible. Like the
extinct dinosaurs. (II, 226)
Progress is hubris and nemesis
fused together. (II, 226)
To be intelligent without ideas is
the privilege of the artist. (II, 345)
There is nothing more
common than transforming a duty which inconveniences us
into an
“ethical problem.” (II, 380)
The enemies of myth are not
the friends of reality but of triviality. (II, 395)
The racist
is annoyed because he secretly suspects that the races are equal. The
anti-racist is annoyed because he secretly suspects that they are
not. (II, 396)
Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are
equal. (II, 396)
Imperatives, ethical or esthetic, should be
negative. Positive imperatives increase imposture. (II, 399)
The
itch to be original is an affectation caused by a lack of talent.
(II, 400)
The liturgy can only be spoken definitively in
Latin. In a vulgar tongue it is vulgar. (II, 406)
The modern
soul is a lunar landscape. (II, 410)
In the idiom of modern
architecture nothing complicated can be said. (II, 417)
The
wealthy man’s sin isn’t his wealth but the importance he attaches
to it. (II, 418)
The number of votes which elect a ruler is
not a measure of his legitimacy but of his mediocrity. (II,
425)
Ideas of the left give birth to revolutions. Revolutions
give birth to ideas of the right. (II, 431)
Imitation, in the
arts, is less harmful than rules. (II, 437)
Truth is so subtle
that it never inspires as much confidence as an erroneous thesis.
(II, 438)
Agricultural prosperity ennobles; industrial
prosperity vulgarizes. (II, 445)
Adaptation to the modern
world requires sclerosis of sensibility and degradation of character.
(II, 445)
Nowadays public opinion is not the sum of private
opinions. On the contrary, private opinions are an echo of public
opinion. (II, 446)
Excess of politeness paralyzes; the lack of
it brutalizes. (II, 449)
To be unaware of the putrefaction of
the modern world is a symptom of contagion by
it. (II,
451)
Intellectual vulgarity attracts voters like flies. (II,
454)
No public cause deserves the unlimited allegiance of an
intelligent man. (II, 459)
History is a series of nights and
days. Short days and protracted nights. (II, 468)
There is an
illiteracy of the soul that no diploma cures. (II, 469)
God
prefers an uncircumcised heart to a castrated mind. (II, 471)
The
genuine reader is the one who reads for pleasure the books that
others only study. (II, 486)
The function of revolutions is to
destroy the illusions that created them. (II, 498)
This selection is drawn from Volume I
of his 1977 book “Scholia on an Implicit Text”; the translation
is by Michael Gilleland.
