The article deals with the work of the Colombian philosopher and writer Nicholás Gómez Dávila, and primarily his five-volume work Scholia to an Implicit Text (Escolios a un texto implícito). This work is a collection of over 10,000 brilliant aphorisms. Gómez Dávila called himself a reactionary thinker. His aphorisms express a critical attitude towards the modern world. He criticized the shortcomings of democracies, and was strongly opposed to revolutions and the idea of progress. He saw progress as a gradual slide down an inclined plane. His ideal is a traditional society that is organized hierarchically. He also sharply criticized contemporary art, in which he believed little skill was left with very large pretensions for originality. He is a religious thinker who did not accept the ecclesiastical relief of the Second Vatican Council. An unattractive portrait of a man of our day looms in his aphorisms. He writes about fools and vulgar people who pursue fashion that attracts them by its superficial brilliance, while the “genuine reactionary” is always opposed to fashion. The reactionary is a loner by nature, does not tolerate crowds, lives an inner life, and communicates with philosophy and art. In the modern world, Gómez Dávila finds expressions of Gnostic tendencies from which comes the idea of the deification of man and the oblivion of God. He contrasts the intellect as something dry and abstract to intelligence which must live through existential conflicts. Some have compared Gómez Dávila with Nietzsche, but this comparison does not seem relevant.