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

Nicolás Gómez Dávila Philosophy See all quotes by Nicolás Gómez Dávila →

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“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.”

“No public cause deserves the unlimited allegiance of an intelligent man.”

“The enemies of myth are not the friends of reality but of triviality.”

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

“The individual shrinks in proportion as the state grows.”

“To be intelligent without ideas is the privilege of the artist.”

Resonant Thoughts

"...votes are to swords exactly what bank notes are to gold—the one is effective only because the other is believed to be behind it."

— F. E. Smith

Politics1872–1930

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"All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties."

— Bertrand Russell

Philosophy1872–1970

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"All those who support her continued detention, anyone who is silent while she remains in jail, and all those who make her detention possible are saying: Forget democracy. That’s not what we are. Get u…"

— Gideon Levy

Journalism1953

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"Southerners carried out an asymmetrical kind of political warfare that the rest of the country eventually ran out of patience in confronting. We had the West to win, the Pacific Rim to open, a new eco…"

— Allen C. Guelzo

Politics1953

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