Truth [English] - António de Oliveira Salazar - 1966

Excerpt of the speech “In the 40th Anniversary of May 28“ made on May 28, 1966, in the Public Library of Braga. “I understand the doubts and hesitations. We live in a critical moment of the history of political thought and, more simply, in a critical moment of the world’s history. Everything is in crisis or subject of criticism: morality, religion, the freedom of Man, social organization, the degree of State intervention, economic regimes, the Nation itself and the advantages of its independence or its integration with the others to form big economic and political spaces. It is questioned in Europe the notion of the fatherland itself. Revolutions like that of the Soviets have continued with regards to facts and philosophy the revolutions that preceded it, the Reformation and the French Revolution, and, as with all great movements with their initial momentum, they have a tendency to spread and dominate the world, poisoning us with views and principles they are far from putting into practice in their places of origin. The purest spirits are unsettled, disturbed, they don’t know how to direct themselves and they repeat with anguish Pilate’s question to Christ Himself: “what is truth?“. The doubt with its hesitations and folly does not allow for efficient work; the human spirit needs to adhere to truth, it needs certitudes to direct itself and act. No State can exist without being grounded upon them or assume them defined and accepted. That’s why, even before the current crisis was as widespread, precisely 30 years ago, in this very city of Braga, I felt a need to proclaim “the great certitudes of the National Revolution“. Independently of what transcends the natural order, the dispassionate observation of facts, and the experience of the peoples, through the ages, reveal to us some of these certitudes. But we have another indicator to evaluate their justice: the fruits produced in the life and progress of the Nation, that is, if with the principles that these same certitudes provide we could create among ourselves peace, we could organize our social life and in it prosper. Because our movement seems to be too slow sometimes, many disturb themselves with the accusation of inertia; but one thing is inertia in action and another is the stability of political conceptions. Truth is by essence unchanging and the adherence of the spirit to truth, that is its certitudes, are essential to the progress of human societies.“ More Salazar’s speeches in English: More Salazar’s speeches in Portuguese: