The 90 Best Phrases of Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja was a doctor of Spanish origin who left his profession to pursue his passion for literature. His path led him to become one of the most important figures in Spanish literature and theater. His main theme was individualism and the political opinions that led him to permanent exile.

In this article you will find a compilation of the phrases by Pío Baroja more interesting, commented.

Pío Baroja’s most memorable phrases

Baroja was part of the well-known group of writers, poets and essayists, the ‘generation of ’98’, who were part of the end of the Spanish-American War. Below we will learn about the best phrases and reflections of Pío Baroja and his transition during this time.

1. A community is always deceived better than a man.

Doughs can be very manipulable.

2. Although we have the evidence that we must live constantly in darkness and darkness, without purpose and without end, we must have hope.

Hope is what moves us to pursue a better future.

3. When one gets old, one likes to reread more than to read.

Talking about preferring to read the old, beloved books than some new story.

4. When a man looks at himself a lot, he ends up not knowing which is his face and which is his mask.

Warning of the danger of self-centered people.

5. The one who succeeds is always nice.

The result of the ‘Halo effect’. We tend to appreciate more those who look good.

6. Many people think, or at least feel, that those who do not have their habits and enthusiasms are an enemy.

The rejection of those who do not share the way of life of the same society.

7. Only fools have many friends.

Many friendships are not equivalent to having real friendships.

8. We lack the cement of divine faith or human faith, to make with these rubble something that looks like a statue.

On the deficiency of trust in human goodness.

9. Nothing is impossible for an energetic will.

That is why we must build a strong self-esteem that outweighs adversity.

10. Actually, I don’t know if with justice or not, I don’t admire ingenuity, because it is seen that there are many ingenious men in the world.

For Baroja, the most outstanding characteristic is creativity.

11. He who loves contradiction and verbosity is incapable of learning anything that is serious.

To know you have to have an open mind.

12. Half-angel or half-beast, man is a strange animal.

Nobody is entirely good or bad.

13. One has the anguish, the despair of not knowing what to do with life, of not having a plan, of finding oneself lost.

A moment that has happened to all of us or will happen.

14. The Jew believes that the sovereignty of the people 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 criticism of the arrogant actions of the Jews for being a ‘chosen people of God’

15. The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

Not everything is based on science or strict metrics. Creativity is also necessary.

16. So in life, many times, you don’t know if you are the one who pushes the events or if the events are the ones that drag you.

Since we are not able to control everything. There are times when we must let things flow.

17. I would like to live from work, not from favor.

Work is what leads us to reward.

18. Morality can never, therefore, be political, and politics that is moral ceases to be political.

Maintaining a clear gap between two concepts that should not be mixed.

19. Falsehood and dissimulation are useful in social life.

Sometimes we have to ignore things that do not bring us anything good.

20. Cruelty, like stupidity, the more decorated it is, the more detestable.

Cruelty has no excuse.

21. Being intelligent is a misfortune, only happiness can come from unconsciousness and madness.

Being a little crazy helps us escape the exhausting chains of reality.

22. Psychoanalysis is the cubism of medicine.

His opinion on psychoanalysis.

23. I thought she was so pretty that I couldn’t remember what she looked like later.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be dazzled by a person’s appearance, instead of seeking to know them.

24. They lived as if they were immersed in the shadows of a deep sleep, without forming a clear idea of ​​their life, without aspirations, plans, projects, or anything.

People who remain not only in conformity but who resign themselves to not getting out of there.

25. There are almost no good or bad men, nor traitors by vocation, nor poisoners by whim.

Only people who are satisfied with what is offered to them.

26. The revolution is good for actors. All cries are useful, all foolishness has value, all pedants reach a pedestal.

Not all revolutions are used for something positive. They can be the beginning of a dictatorship.

27. My ideal is to found the Republic of Bidasoa with this motto: Without flies, without friars and without police.

A strange ideal on the part of Baroja.

28. Sad country where all the men are serious and all the women lackadaisical, where in the look of a passing man we see the look of an enemy.

A reflection on the panorama that Spain was going through in its time.

29. Music is an art that is outside the limits of reason, it can be said to be below it as well as above it.

Music is one of the arts most needed by people.

30. What is called erudition and what is called style is generally nothing more than pedantry and mannerisms.

Sharing knowledge is not the same as using this as a weapon to discredit others.

31. History is a branch of literature.

The story is created from the union of facts with a touch of imagination.

32. A paradise achieved without effort does not excite the believer.

Rewards must come from our hard work or sacrifice.

33. What doubt can there be that the world we know is the result of the reflection of the cosmos part of the sensitive horizon in our brain?

We see the world depending on our experiences in it.

34. Man, whose need is to know, is like the butterfly that breaks the chrysalis to die.

There is never too much knowledge to know.

35. Everyone sees the world in their own way.

Because everyone has different and personal perceptions about it.

36. Was it an evil feeling of contrast? Feeling healthy and strong around the handicapped and the weak?

Many people believe they are invincible because they trample on the most vulnerable.

37.

References:

cannot reflect everything black in life. The main reason is that literature chooses and life does not.

That is why literature seeks to have a happy ending.

38. I believe that to be a writer it is enough to have something to say in your own or someone else’s sentences.

What it takes to be a writer, according to Baroja.

39. Everything is fine if it seems right.

But is what seems right really right?

40. In old age you only repeat yourself.

His thoughts on what happens in old age.

41. There are no more dead than those carried by the living.

People whose lives are stained because of the selfishness of others.

42. I believe that people, when they are intelligent and completely normal, should not pretend to be strange and strange, because they reach the point of invented absurdity.

For Baroja, a person’s actions were decisive.

43. Emancipate yourself from the mediocre life!

Only we have the choice to stay stagnant or move forward.

44. I also thought that he must be one of those, one of those who work in the sun, not one of those who seek pleasure in the shade.

Many times we hold back from doing something different for fear of killing the values ​​that have been instilled in us.

45. That parliamentarism is not fruitful. It is impossible. Parliamentarism is a bonfire that consumes everything at its side; dictatorship can be salvation.

Talking about the little benefit that parliamentarism brings.

46. ​​The agreement of all intelligences on the same thing is what we call truth.

We all seek the truth.

47. Life is a constant fight, a cruel hunt in which we devour each other.

The fittest is the one who survives. The one who can follow his path regardless of the rest.

48. History is always a fantasy without a scientific basis.

We now know that history is not always accurate.

49. Clarity in science is necessary; but in literature, no. Seeing clearly is philosophy. Seeing clearly in the mystery is literature.

Clarity from different points of view.

50. I am a curious man who has been bored since early childhood.

Baroja gave free rein to his curiosity to guide him.

51. What do you do with life?

A question that we all ask ourselves and that each person must discover on their own.

52. Death is someone who withdraws from himself and returns to us.

Reflections on death.

53. The public easily believes the greatest nonsense.

There are needs that are imposed on us to generate commerce.

54. They say that the philosopher Averroes used to exclaim: What a sect of Christians who eat their God!

Showing his anti-religious side.

55. The healthy, alive, strong individual does not see things as they are, because it is not convenient for him. He is inside a hallucination.

When people use positivity and happiness as a fallacy.

56. The will, the desire to live, is as strong in the animal as in man. In man understanding is greater. The more you understand, the less you want.

All of us seek a better life.

57. I have not been able to distinguish where the exploitation begins and where it ends.

And even more so these days, where exploitation is disguised as effort.

58. The army should be nothing more than the arm of the nation, never the head.

The army should never be against the people.

59. We are great builders of illusions, until we do everything possible to destroy them.

It is ideas from which great progress arises. Although we don’t give them the credit they deserve.

60. The law is inexorable, like dogs: it only barks at those who are poorly dressed.

The law is not always fair to those who really need it.

61. A town without flies means that it is a clean town: a town without friars reveals that it has good sense, and a town without police indicates that its state has no strength; All things that seem excellent to me.

What must happen for towns to be ideal.

62. We could write the books that make us happy ourselves, if we had no other choice.

Everyone has the ability to write their own happy story.

63. The difference between morality and politics is this: that for morality man is an end and for politics a means.

Two opposite poles that according to Baroja should not come together.

64. Bureaucracy in Latin countries seems to have been established to vex the public.

Talking about the imposition of corrupt political powers.

65. We have decomposed man, the set of lies and truths that man once was, and we do not know how to put it back together.

Lamenting the course of humanity being tempted by consumerism.

66. For some, pleasure, vice, and night; for others, work, fatigue, the sun.

Everyone finds their reward in different places.

67. For me, a politician is a rhetorician who should not be taken into account and the Government that does nothing is the best.

Your personal opinion about politicians.

68. A custom indicates much more the character of a people than an idea.

Customs are what speak good or bad about a civilization.

69. A long novel will always be a succession of short novels.

Novels that do not have a near ending.

70. Civilization owes more to selfishness than to all religions and philanthropic utopias.

Selfishness is not always bad, as it guides us toward resolving a better outlook.

71. You have to laugh when they say that science fails. Nonsense: What fails is the lie; Science marches forward, overwhelming everything.

Science always tries to move forward.

72. The man of our time, more than immoral, is brute. He likes stupid and somewhat childish entertainment, he wants to eat, drink and show off. The same thing happens to women.

People leaning towards the easy and irresponsible life. Instead of cultivating a rich and prosperous world.

73. It is the innocent and not the wise who solve difficult questions.

Innocence allows us to see effective solutions because it does not create unnecessary major conflicts.

74. The life of sacrifice is almost always more pleasant than that of bitterness.

This is because sacrifices usually leave us with valuable rewards.

75. Is there no plan to live with a certain decorum?

A reflection on those who prefer a flashy and extravagant life.

76. The contagion of prejudices often makes people believe in the difficulty of things that are not difficult at all.

Prejudices lead us to create gaps where they should never exist.

77. The truth cannot be exaggerated. In truth there can be no nuances. In semi-truth or lies, many.

The truth is or it is not. It is never something halfway.

78. The world, for us, is representation, as Schopenhauer said; It is not an absolute reality, but a reflection of essential ideas.

Reality is what each person perceives about the world.

79. All my works are of youth, of turbulence, perhaps of a youth without vigor, without strength, but works of youth.

The warrior spirit of youth that always seeks change.

80. The universe has no beginning in time nor limit in space; everything is subject to the chain of causes and effects.

Everything you do will have a negative or positive consequence.

81. Nor am I surprised that there are people with memories, no matter how great and prodigious they may be, nor that there are calculators; What amazes me most is kindness, and I say this without the slightest hint of hypocrisy.

Kindness, in a consumerist and corrupt world, is an exotic attraction.

82. People have so little fantasy that they have to eagerly collect from each other those little decorations of conversation. They are like ragpickers or collectors of clichés.

There are those who get into the lives of others because it is the only thing they have.

83. We all look at each other with the characteristic hatred with which we Spaniards look at each other.

Talking about the resentment that existed at that time towards the Spanish.

84. The greatest number of friends marks the maximum degree on the dynamometer of stupidity.

There are people who surround themselves with many friends to feel important or loved.

85. If you want to do something in life, don’t believe in the word impossible.

Impossibilities limit us, especially those we create in our minds.

86. The child laughs for joy; It is the first step. Humor laughs sadly; It is the last step. Aurora and twilight.

Different facets of humor that depend on the incidence.

87. Let’s leave the conclusions for the idiots.

Everyone will form a different opinion on the same topic.

88. The man: a millimeter above the monkey if not a centimeter below the pig.

About his perception towards the actions of the human race.

89. Seeking unanimity through violence is a futile task.

No goal achieved with violence should be viewed with pride.

90. Just as misfortune makes us think more, happiness removes all desire for analysis; That is why it is doubly desirable.

Happiness leads us to appreciate the things we achieve, but it can also lead us to hide from reality.