philosophers-from-columbia

"With God there are only individuals."

"Every goal other than God dishonors us."

"An "ideal society" would be the graveyard of human greatness."

"Democratic parliaments are not places where debate occurs but where popular absolutism registers its edicts."

"Love of the people is an aristocratic calling. The democrat only loves the people at election time."

"The individual shrinks in proportion as the state grows."

"La autenticidad del sentimiento depende de la claridad de la idea."

"To refuse to wonder is the mark of the beast."

"The one who renounces seems weak to the one incapable of renunciation."

"Genuine allegiance to an idea surpasses every psychological or social motivation."

"Vulgarity consists in pretending to be what we are not."

"The incoherent interlocutor is more irritating than the hostile one."

"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."

"Las ideas confusas y los estanques turbios parecen profundos."

"El filósofo que adopta nociones científicas predeterminó sus conclusiones."

"To think like our contemporaries is a recipe for prosperity and stupidity."

"All literature is contemporary to the reader who knows how to read."

"A happy existence is as much of a model as a virtuous one."

"Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it."

"Perfection is the point where what we can do and what we want to do coincide with what we ought to do."

"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."

"Every marriage of an intellectual with the communist party ends in adultery."

"Modern man destroys more when he builds than when he destroys."

"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."

"The Biblical prophet doesn't predict the future, but bears witness to the presence of God in history."

"Civilization is a poorly fortified encampment in the midst of rebellious tribes."

"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."

"Ritual is an instrument of the sacred. Every innovation is a profanation."

"The supreme aristocrat is not the feudal lord in his castle but the contemplative monk in his cell."

"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."

"The modern tragedy is not the tragedy of reason defeated but of reason triumphant."

"Philosophy is a literary genre."

"The study of myths belongs to metaphysics, not to psychology."

"The writer who loves or hates is less persuasive than the one who loves and hates."

"Modern man is a prisoner who thinks he is free because he refrains from touching the walls of his dungeon."

"To have opinions is the best way to escape the obligation of thinking."

"God is a nuisance for modern man."

"The "ivory tower" has a bad reputation only among the inhabitants of intellectual hovels."

"The Church founders without the ballast of "average Christians.""

"I distrust every idea that doesn't seem obsolete and grotesque to my contemporaries."

"The Church used to absolve sinners; today it has the gall to absolve sins."

"There are not a few French historians who think that the history of the world is an episode in the history of France."

"Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear conscience."

"Nothing multiplies the number of fools so much as the example of celebrities."

"Civilization seems to be the invention of a species now extinct."

"In the Christian obsessed with "social justice" it isn't easy to discern whether charity is flourishing or faith is expiring."

"Egalitarian ideas distort our perception of the present and, in addition, mutilate our vision of the past."

"The punishment of the idealist consists in the triumph of his cause."

"La madurez del espíritu comienza cuando dejamos de sentirnos encargados del mundo."