The 100 best phrases (and reflections) of Pío Baroja
Pío Baroja was a renowned Spanish writer who belonged to the consecrated 'generation of 98'. Before being a writer, he was a medical professional, although later he would leave because of his true passion. His works were recognized for capturing a harsh world, where politics was never transparent, taking the opportunity to criticize the social, political and religious system.
Great quotes and phrases from Pío Baroja
To remember his legacy and learn more about his career, we bring in this article a compilation with the best phrases of Pío Baroja to reflect on the world.
1. Only fools have many friends.
People who have an extreme need to be recognized.
2. Let's leave the conclusions to the idiots.
Everyone writes his story.
3. If you want to do something in life, don't believe the word impossible.
Limits are often created in our mind.
4. He who loves contradiction and truthfulness is incapable of learning anything serious.
People who are drawn towards drama.
5. When a man looks at himself a lot, he ends up not knowing which is his face and which is his mask.
People who are carried away by self-centeredness, are blind to the rest.
6. The universe has no beginning in time and no limit in space; everything is subject to the chain of causes and effects.
The universe is only in itself.
7. Half-angel or half-beast, man is a strange animal.
The two facets of the human.
8. All my works are of youth, of turbulence, perhaps of a youth without vigor, without force, but works of youth.
What their stories are about.
9. One has the anguish, the desperation of not knowing what to do with life, of not having a plan, of finding oneself lost.
A moment of emptiness that we all go through.
10. When you get old, you like to reread more than to read.
One of the customs of old age.
11. Cruelty, like stupidity, the more adorned they are, the more detestable.
Romanticizing things that shouldn't be normal.
12. You have to laugh when they say that science fails.
Science is always discovering something new.
13. I believe that people, when they are intelligent and completely normal, should not pretend to be weird and strange, because it reaches the point of invented absurdity.
People should aspire to be themselves.
14. The army must not be more than the arm of the nation, never the head.
You should never abuse your strength.
15. The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
Science is necessary but it is not everything.
16. Just as misfortune makes you reason more, happiness removes all desire for analysis; therefore it is doubly desirable.
Happiness makes us want to live to the fullest.
17. History is a branch of literature.
For Baroja, history is like a novel.
18. Many people think, or at least feel, that one who does not have his habits and enthusiasms is an enemy.
Many dismiss other people just because they do not share their same ideals.
19. It is that the truth cannot be exaggerated.
The truth is simple and absolute.
20. Really, I don't know if it's fair or not, I don't admire ingenuity, because you see that there are many ingenious men in the world.
Ingenuity is not always synonymous with a good person.
21. History is always a fantasy with no scientific basis.
Not all historical facts are correct.
22. Although we have the evidence that we have to live constantly in darkness and darkness, aimlessly and without end, we must have hope.
It is we who must turn on our personal light.
23. Everyone sees the world their way.
All people perceive the world in a different way.
24. The man: a millimeter above the monkey if not a centimeter below the pig.
An abstract creature.
25. We lack the cement of divine faith or human faith, to make with these rubble something that looks like a statue.
The world needs good will.
26. Death is someone who withdraws from himself and returns to us.
Death is an essential part of life.
27. If you ever discover any law, be wise and do not try to apply it. He has discovered the law... that is enough.
The law does not always benefit everyone.
28. The child laughs for joy; he is the first step. Humor laughs sadly; it is the last step. Dawn and twilight.
Laughter and joy as the best medicine par excellence.
29. Literature cannot reflect all that is black in life. The main reason is that literature chooses and life does not.
Literature lights a small beacon of hope.
30. Psychoanalysis is the cubism of medicine.
Thoughts on psychoanalysis.
31. A town without friars reveals that it has good sense, and a town without police officers indicates that its state has no strength; all things that I think are excellent.
About what the people need.
32. I believe that to be a writer it is enough to have something to say in one's own or someone else's phrases.
What it takes to be a writer.
33. Carlism is cured by reading and nationalism by traveling.
It is always necessary to have an open mind to understand the world.
34. Clarity in science is necessary; but in literature, no.
Literature has the power to get carried away by everything.
35. The man of our time, more than immoral is brutal.
Someone who gets carried away by any idea.
36. For me a politician is a rhetorician who should not be taken into account and the government that does nothing is the best.
About his position before the public forces.
37. Falsehood and dissimulation are useful in social life.
Negative characteristics that serve us to survive.
38. After Kant the world is blind.
Mourning the loss of the philosopher.
39. Civilization owes more to selfishness than to all religions and philanthropic utopias.
Many religious ideals impede the growth of a nation.
40. In our time, between communists and fascists, there is great sympathy for the bureaucrats and a background of animosity against those who are not.
Living in fascist times.
41. And to think that some are amazed that we have lost the colonies!
Amazed by the defenses to the colonies conquered with blood.
42. They lived as if sunk in the shadows of a deep sleep, without forming a clear idea of their life, without aspirations, or plans, or projects, or anything.
Those who stay in their comfort zone.
43. There are hardly any good or bad men anymore, or traitors by vocation, or poisoners by whim.
People who are only automatons of their needs and desires.
44. In old age, you just repeat yourself.
His belief about old age.
45. The contagion of prejudice often makes us believe in the difficulty of things that are not difficult at all.
Prejudice harms the correct advancement of a society.
46. Nietzsche, born of the fiercest pessimism, is basically a good man, this is the polar opposite of Rousseau, who, despite always speaking of virtue, of sensitive hearts, of the sublimity of the spirit, he turns out to be a low and vile.
Looks are deceiving. That is why we should not get carried away by them.
47. Sad country where all the men are serious and all the women careless, where in the look of a passing man we see the look of an enemy.
A critique of the ambitious society.
48. If you take away from the rich man the satisfaction of knowing that while he sleeps someone else freezes and that while he eats another he dies of hunger, he takes away half of his happiness.
People with money based on the misfortune of others.
49. Ideas are of no importance.
There are ideas that destroy people.
50. The books that make us happy we could write ourselves, if we had no other choice.
Everyone has the potential to write a book.
51. The difference between morality and politics is this: that for morality man is an end and for politics a means.
Differences between morality and politics.
52. The revolution is good for the histriones.
The negative character of revolutions.
53. The Jew believes that the sovereignty of peoples is destined for him. He has a great idea of his superiority, a deep contempt for others and is a man of few scruples.
A critique of the feeling of superiority of the Jews for being 'the chosen people of God'.
54. Ideas are the colorful uniform that is put on feelings and instincts.
Ideas are created from personal beliefs.
55. We all look at each other with the characteristic hatred with which we Spaniards look at each other.
A time full of hate.
56. Morality can therefore never be political, and politics that is moral ceases to be political.
Morality and politics do not go hand in hand.
57. All shouts serve, all nonsense has value, all pedants reach a pedestal.
People who take advantage of the condition of others.
58. A worthwhile man has not come out in Spain.
A lament to the dictatorial Spain.
59. A custom indicates much more the character of a people than an idea.
Customs mark the life of the people.
60. The greatest number of friends marks the maximum degree in the dynamometer of stupidity.
It is not necessary to have many friends to have true friends.
61. My ideal is now to found the Republic of Bidasoa with this motto: No flies, no friars and no policemen.
One of his ideals.
62. Parliamentarism is a bonfire that consumes everything next to it; dictatorship can be salvation.
Pío Baroja was a defender of the military dictatorship.
63. I have never flattered anyone, least of all the people.
The people are easily manipulated.
64. We have decomposed man, the set of lies and truths that man used to be, and we do not know how to put it back together.
The change back of man.
65. What amazes me is how we haven't lost even our pants with this bureaucracy.
A critique of the system that governed the Spain of his time.
66. The public most easily believes the greatest nonsense.
They respond to promises that will end their miseries.
67. Being intelligent is a misfortune, only happiness can come from unconsciousness and madness.
Sometimes you have to let go.
68. Larra said: Blessed are those who do not speak, because they understand each other.
You don't need many words if you want to express yourself honestly.
69. There can no longer be either freedom or justice, but rather forces that act by a principle of causality in the domains of space and time.
The justice that is being lost.
70. He likes stupid and a bit childish amusements, he wants to eat, drink and show off. The same thing happens to women.
When people fall into banalities.
71. Seeing clearly is philosophy. Seeing clearly in the mystery is literature. That's what Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dickens, Dostoiewski did...
His great inspirations in literature and philosophy.
72. A town without flies means that it is a clean town.
About having fresh and healthy food.
73. The merit for the snobs is to always make discoveries. Thus they have arrived at Dadaism, Cubism and other similar stupidities.
Incredibly, it is the upper echelons that make art known.
74. Long live good wine, which is the great comrade for the road.
Showing his passion for wine.
75. The law is inexorable, like dogs: it only barks at those who are badly dressed.
The law that benefits only those who can buy it.
76. Music is an art that is outside the limits of reason, it can be said that it is below it as well as that it is above it.
Speaking of the power of music.
77. I thought she was so pretty that I couldn't remember what she looked like afterwards.
That first impression that leaves you blinded.
78. If this law is physical and you try to apply it to a machine, you will stumble on raw matter; and if it is a social law, it will come up against the brutality of men.
On the laws that are imposed to benefit corruption.
79. There are no more dead than those carried by the living.
There are people who are dead in life.
80. Reinforced concrete is an honest and useful muse, and perhaps in the hands of a brilliant architect it would be admirable.
Tools in the right hands create great works.
81. They say that the philosopher Averroes used to exclaim: What a sect of Christians who eat their God!
On the extreme acts of religious in the name of God.
82. Seeking unanimity for violence is wasteful work.
Power based on violence is a dictatorship.
83. When an attempt is made to build an invulnerable shed and place a consequence on it, there is a danger that a fact will change and the entire historical framework will collapse.
The story changes depending on who writes it.
84. Nor does it surprise me that there are people with memory, no matter how great and portentous it may be, or that there are calculators; What amazes me the most is kindness, and I say this without the slightest hint of hypocrisy.
Having a greater reception towards kind people.
85. In truth there can be no nuances. In the semi-truth or in lies, many.
The truth is absolute or it is a lie.
86. Intransigence seems logical to me when it comes to essential ideas.
His stance on intransigence.
87. What is called erudition and what is called style is generally nothing more than pedantry and mannerisms.
A critique of the fashions that are imposed on society.
88. The most transcendental actions of our lives are carried out in complete unconsciousness, almost like sleepwalkers.
When we listen to our instincts.
89. Emancipate yourself from the mediocre life!
A call to proaction.
90. What fails is the lie; science marches forward, overwhelming everything.
Science is our engine of progress.
91. A long novel will always be a succession of short novels.
His opinion on novels.
92. Always the nice one who wins.
Because he conquers everyone with his charisma.
93. The world, for us, is representation, as Schopenhauer said; it is not an absolute reality, but a reflection of essential ideas.
The way we act is derived from how we see the world.
94. I have not had this condition, and I think that not having it has harmed me more than anything else. It has also harmed me a little, when dealing with locals and strangers, not having solemnity.
Talking about his negative stance.
95. It is the innocent and not the wise who solve the difficult questions.
Innocent people have higher viewing range.
96. The bureaucracy in Latin countries seems to have been established to harass the public.
A bureaucracy that only takes advantage of the people.
97. A community is always better deceived than a man.
Communities respond to their needs.
98. People have so little fancy that they have to eagerly pick up those little trinkets of conversation from each other. They are like rag pickers or stubs of set phrases.
People who steal the creativity of others.
99. Nothing is impossible for an energetic will.
The will is the main engine to achieve any goal.
100. The life of sacrifices is almost always more pleasant than that of bitterness.
Letting go of things that weigh us down frees us.