To light one candle to God and another to the Devil is the

The Spanish thinker José Bergamín, in his paradoxical way, declares: “To light one candle to God and another to the Devil is the principle of wisdom.” At first glance, his words seem to mock faith, as if man could serve two masters. Yet look deeper, and you will find the fire of an older truth: that the world is made not of light alone nor of darkness alone, but of both entwined. To acknowledge this duality is not cowardice, but wisdom—for to ignore either side is to blind oneself to the full measure of reality.

In this saying, Bergamín speaks of balance and of the necessity of honoring both the divine and the diabolical within life. For men are not angels, nor are they demons; they are woven of both clay and spirit. The candle to God is the flame of hope, of morality, of striving toward the eternal good. The candle to the Devil is the recognition of our flaws, our passions, our dangerous freedom. To light both is to confess humbly that wisdom lies not in denial, but in vigilance, harmony, and awareness of the forces that shape the human soul.

Consider the tale of Alexander the Great, who conquered the known world before the age of thirty. His candle to God was his vision of uniting nations under a grand ideal, a universal brotherhood of mankind. But he also lit a candle to the Devil, for he embraced ambition, wrath, and desire for glory that consumed him and drove his campaigns. Without his divine vision he would not have soared; without his darker fire he would not have dared. His story teaches us that greatness often walks hand in hand with peril, and that wisdom consists not in extinguishing one flame, but in learning to wield both without being destroyed.

So too in the lives of ordinary men and women, this lesson holds. The worker who labors with honesty lights a candle to God, yet when he acknowledges his hunger, his need for rest, his rightful pride, he lights another to the Devil. The mother who teaches her child virtue lights a candle to God, yet when she teaches him to beware, to resist, to fight for his survival, she lights another to the Devil. Both candles burn, and together they illumine the true path of human existence.

Let the generations remember: to pretend we are all light is folly, to surrender wholly to darkness is despair. To light both candles is to accept life’s dual nature with open eyes, to walk with courage between heaven and abyss. In this tension lies the principle of wisdom, for only those who face both the saint and the sinner within themselves can stand whole before the turning wheel of fate.