John Myles White: Die Sudelbücher

When love is a feeling rather than an action, it is nearly worthless.

Pew Research has found that 79% of Americans believe in The Second Coming of Jesus. What worries me more is not that 4 out of 5 Americans believe in The Second Coming, but that 1 out of 5 believes it will happen in their lifetime. It seems inevitable that such a belief will grossly warp your priorities: you would have no reason at all to care about long term problems like global warming or antibiotic resistant bacteria, because you believe the world will end long before those concerns become substantial.

I wonder: does this 20% of the American people exhibit more delay discounting than American atheists?

We often find it easier to endure the evils we have sought to avoid than the good fortune that we have dreamt of.

Rereading Gómez Dávila’s “Escolios”, I am once again reminded that it is the greatest of the works of 20th Century Spanish language literature that have yet to be translated into English. Each time I return to these books, I find new sections that I adore:

En el auténtico humanismo se respira la presencia de una sensualidad discreta y familiar.

In authentic humanism, there breathes the presence of a discrete and familiar sensuality.

Sólo una cosa no es vana: la perfección sensual del instante.

One thing alone is not vain: the sensual perfection of an instant.

Una existencia feliz es tan ejemplar como una virtuosa.

A happy existence is as exemplary as a virtuous one.

Se suele olvidar que lo contrario de romántico no es clásico sino imbécil.

It is commonly forgotten that the opposite of Romantic is not classical, but idiotic.

Cuando la providencia nos concede el destino que anhelábamos, pronto descubrimos que aceptarlo requiere una resignación desolada.

When providence concedes to us the destiny that we wished for, we soon discover that a desolate resignation is required to accept it.

Dios es la substancia de lo que amamos.

God is the substance of that which we love.¹

If anyone could make me believe in God, it would be Gómez Dávila.

1. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios a un texto implícito : Tomo I↩