J. Budziszewski Quotes & Sayings

Though it always comes as a surprise to intellectuals, there are some forms of stupidity that one must be highly intelligent and educated to commit. — J. Budziszewski

When, despite considerable intelligence, a thinker cannot think straight, it becomes very likely that he cannot face his thoughts. — J. Budziszewski

A wise man governs his eyes, not because it is wrong to delight in beauty, but because otherwise his delight may suffer transmutation into something very different. — J. Budziszewski

Trying to understand man without recognizing him as imago Dei is like trying to understand a bas-relief without recognizing it as a carving. — J. Budziszewski

A secular person treats as the Highest Standard something that isn't the Highest Standard. — J. Budziszewski

Of course, for whatever is amiss in these pages (and there will be much), the blame is mine. But permit me to be grateful if anything in them is true. — J. Budziszewski

To many people today, however, rights are something to protect us against the demands of morality. — J. Budziszewski

I believe in civility. But it is not a requirement of civility to pretend there is no war. — J. Budziszewski

the City is not a simple partnership; it is a partnership of partnerships, each of which already has a pattern of its own, a pattern that government did not give it. These partnerships best flourish in that larger partnership which is the City, and law merely assures the background conditions - the most important of which is simple justice - they need in order to do so. Thus the proper aim of the state is not to do everything itself but to support a life which was there before it. — J. Budziszewski

In order to avoid believing in just one God we are now asked to believe in an infinite number of universes, all of them unobservable just because they are not part of ours. The principle of inference seems to be not Occam's Razor but Occam's Beard: Multiply entities unnecessarily. — J. Budziszewski

As any sin passes through its stages from temptation, to toleration, to approval, its name is first euphemized, then avoided, then forgotten. A colleague tells me that some of his fellow legal scholars call child molestation "intergenerational intimacy": that's euphemism. A good-hearted editor tried to talk me out of using the term "sodomy": that's avoidance. My students don't know the word "fornication" at all: that's forgetfulness. — J. Budziszewski

Even the suicide desires his own good: he wrongly imagines that he would be better off dead. The moral problem is not that we love ourselves but that we love ourselves the wrong way. — J. Budziszewski

Those who do not accept conscience as a teacher must face it as an accuser. — J. Budziszewski

C. S. Lewis once wrote that man has two clues to the meaning of the universe. One is the knowledge of a law that he did not make but is obligated to keep; the other is the knowledge that he does not and cannot keep it. — J. Budziszewski

It is not for nothing that the king of a commonwealth is called "Sire"; humanly speaking, of the callings of fatherhood and kingship, the deeper and more primordial is fatherhood. — J. Budziszewski

In the same way, filling a cavity restores to the tooth its natural function of chewing. Healing does not transcend our nature; it respects it. — J. Budziszewski

Plurality without Design is merely chaos. — J. Budziszewski

Jesus, I am sorry. — J. Budziszewski

Even a liar's speech expresses something true; it may not tell us the state of the world, but it tells us the state of his heart. — J. Budziszewski

It is in the nature of love to bind itself";2 vows are love's native language. Love that is mute in the language of promises, though it may be called love, is not love but something else. — J. Budziszewski

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat. (Ps 19:1-6) — J. Budziszewski

from a Second Vatican Council document: "The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man find true light. — J. Budziszewski

To penetrate the unknown, the mind must begin with what is known already. George Orwell wrote that "We have now sunk to a depth at which re-statement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." This book is an attempt at re-statement. — J. Budziszewski

The problem was not that they failed to find these principles written upon their hearts, but that they could not bring themselves to attend closely to the inscription. — J. Budziszewski

[Traditions] give voice to what in some sense we already know, but inarticulately. When tradition is silenced, people have to work all these things out for themselves - and that is impossible. — J. Budziszewski

As to the latter point - that by having a child in America you are somehow starving a child in Bangladesh - remember that agricultural economics is not a zero-sum game. Farmers want to make a living, so as demand increases, so does production. Not only that, but agricultural productivity has increased so rapidly that in some countries the government pays farmers not to plant crops in an effort to keep food prices from dropping. — J. Budziszewski

How conscience tells us that we ought to be fair, nobody knows. This we can say: we don't know it just from being told, we don't know it from the five senses, and we don't know it by inference from prior knowledge. We just know it. The knowledge is underived. — J. Budziszewski

It is hard enough to face the moral law even with the revelation that the divine justice and divine mercy are conjoined. It offends our pride to be forgiven, terrifies it to surrender control. — J. Budziszewski

Friedrich Nietzsche, originator of the slogan "God is dead", reported that at times he was overcome by gratitude. This admission is most interesting, because gratitude is not a self-regarding attitude like pleasure, but an other-regarding attitude like anger. It presupposes someone to whom gratitude is owed. — J. Budziszewski

Depraved conscience turns out to be as different from genuine ignorance as it is from honest recognition. — J. Budziszewski

What your body does is unrelated to your heart. Don't believe it. The same survey reports that hooking up commonly takes place when both participants are drinking or drunk, and it's not hard to guess the reason why: After a certain amount of this, you may need to get drunk to go through with it. — J. Budziszewski

The unitive capacities of the spouses don't exist for nothing; they exist for motherhood and fatherhood. That is the matrix in which they develop, for children change us in a way we desperately need to be changed. They wake us up, they wet their diapers, they depend on us utterly. Willy-nilly, they knock us out of our selfish habits and force us to live sacrificially for others; they are the necessary and natural continuation of the shock to our selfishness which is initiated by matrimony itself. — J. Budziszewski

In the modern era, many thinkers began to mistrust faith, viewing it as 'blind' and an enemy of reason. Their watchword was 'reason alone.' One of the difficulties of this stance is that reason cannot test its own reliability, any more than soapstone can test its own hardness. Any argument, accomplished by reasoning, that what reasoning accomplishes can be trusted, would be circular, because it would take for granted the very thing that it was trying to prove.
Suppose I am at the window of a burning building. Although I can hear the firemen calling to me from far below, I cannot see them because of all the smoke. They are telling me to jump. Though I may have every reason to believe that they will catch me in their net, I may not trust them enough to overcome my fear, and so, hesitating, I burn to death. Obviously, my reasons are not the same as trust; faith surpasses reason. Even so they are reasons for trust; though faith surpasses reason, it is not irrational. — J. Budziszewski

The goods of fidelity, for example, are plain and concrete to the man who has not strayed, but they are faint, like mathematical abstractions, to the one who is addicted to other men's wives. — J. Budziszewski

Your worldview has to have the same shape that reality does. — J. Budziszewski

Natural function and personal meaning are not alien to each other, they are connected. In — J. Budziszewski

Of course there is such a thing as too much doubt, for we ought to accept what is true. But there is also such a thing as proper doubt, for we ought not accept what is false. The possibility of doubt is inherent in the longing to understand, and nothing less than complete and perfect knowledge can satisfy the mind. We do not possess such knowledge here on earth; it is reserved for the beatific vision. Until then, doubt will be with us. This is ... why it is so unreasonable to trust only what cannot be doubted, as Descartes proposed, because everything can be doubted. We should believe, not what we cannot doubt, but what we have the best reasons to believe. — J. Budziszewski

Christian faith undercuts the urge to fix everything on our own, through conviction of the final helplessness of man and confidence in the providence of God
through certainty that only God can set everything to rights, and faith that in the end, He will. Man can only ameliorate, not cure. — J. Budziszewski

To say that we cannot know anything about God is to say something about God; it is to say that if there is a God, he is unknowable. But in that case, he is not entirely unknowable, for the agnostic certainly thinks that we can know one thing about him: That nothing else can be known about him. — J. Budziszewski

Those are just platitudes. Everyone has his own idea of "playing fair."
"Does he? Try making up your own idea of what's fair
say, "giving the greatest rewards to the laziest workers"
and see how seriously people take you. — J. Budziszewski

The chief objection to playing God is that someone else is God already. — J. Budziszewski

We may add that it is not an act of justice but of foolish injustice to pretend the sexes are the same. Justice is exercised in respectfully providing for the due needs of each. — J. Budziszewski

There is even a certain tendency to punish those who do try to see. A case in point: At the dawn of the sexual revolution, social scientists produced statistical studies purporting to show that children are better off when quarreling parents divorce, that broken homes are just as functional as intact ones, and that cohabitation has no influence on the stability of a subsequent marriage. As anyone conversant with the field now knows, newer and more careful studies show all that to be wildly false. A young, untenured family sociologist whom I know used to circulate the results of these new studies secretly among other scholars. But he asked me and his other friends never to mention his name. Why? Because calling the mirage a mirage is a good way to end a career. — J. Budziszewski

Some seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge: that is curiosity. Others seek knowledge that they may themselves be known: that is vanity. But there are still others who seek knowledge in order to serve and edify others, and that is charity." The — J. Budziszewski

We have now sunk to a depth at which re-statement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. GEORGE ORWELL — J. Budziszewski

We are passing through an eerie phase of history in which the things that everyone really knows are treated as unheard-of doctrines, a time in which the elements of common decency are themselves attacked as indecent. Nothing quite like this has ever happened before. Although our civilization has passed through quite a few troughs of immorality, never before has vice held the high moral ground. — J. Budziszewski

A marriage with Christ at the center of it pulls you right out of yourself. It teaches each partner, the husband and the wife, to forget about self for a while in care and sacrifice for the other. We come to ourselves by losing ourselves. — J. Budziszewski

If it really were impossible to derive an ought from the is of the human design, then the practice of medicine would make no sense. Natural — J. Budziszewski

Like other people, anthropologists may see only what they want to see, even when what they want to see is nothing. — J. Budziszewski

To be evil at all, Satan needs good things he can abuse, things like intelligence, power and will. Those good things come from God. — J. Budziszewski

Experience assists wisdom because the universe has been designed to make it so. — J. Budziszewski

If he makes humanity God and yet cries out against God's inhumanity, it is clear who has really been accused. — J. Budziszewski

I mention this only because it seems to be a real obstacle for contemporary people. We don't want the freedom of the creature but the freedom of the Creator - not freedom to be good but freedom to determine the good. Maybe this is not so new after all, for it was the first temptation: to be "like God, knowing good and evil". — J. Budziszewski

The virtue of tolerance is relatively new to political debate; Aristotle did not discuss it. From the way the debate is usually framed, however, one gets the impression that all one has to do to achieve tolerance is to avoid the vice of narrowminded repressiveness. On the contrary, like other virtues, tolerance is opposed by not one vice but two, with grave dangers in each direction.5 The diagram should look not like this: Intolerance Tolerance but like this: Narrowminded Repressiveness - Tolerance - Soft-headed Indulgence — J. Budziszewski

That is how sin works. Having nothing in itself by which to convince, on what other resources but good and truth can it draw to make itself attractive and plausible? We must use the natural law to recognize the abuse of the natural law; there is nothing else to use. — J. Budziszewski

There are some forms of stupidity that one must be highly intelligent and educated to achieve. — J. Budziszewski

Besides, morality is not about whether the human race survives, but about what kind of survival it gets. We marry; guppies don't. We don't eat our young; they do. Yet neither species is in danger of extinction. — J. Budziszewski

The difficulty is that without a direct revelation from the Author of the law, it is impossible to know whether the possibility of forgiveness is real. Therefore — J. Budziszewski

No daycare center can duplicate a mother. — J. Budziszewski

Even in the West, moreover, although the ethical ideal has been absolute monogamy, the legal norm has been merely relative monogamy, which is also known as successive polygamy. — J. Budziszewski

Yet our common moral knowledge is as real as arithmetic, and probably just as plain. Paradoxically, maddeningly, we appeal to it even to justify wrongdoing; rationalization is the homage paid by sin to guilty knowledge. — J. Budziszewski

Experience does not interpret itself. — J. Budziszewski

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — J. Budziszewski

Only good was created. Every evil thing is a good thing ruined. There are no other ways to get an evil thing. — J. Budziszewski

If all meaning were relative, then the meanings of the terms in the proposition "All meaning is relative" would be relative. Therefore the proposition "All meaning is relative" destroys itself. It is nothing but an evasion of reality. That seems a high price to pay, even for the privilege of killing people. — J. Budziszewski

Or perhaps the syndrome we are witnessing is preemptive capitulation: If we reduce our conscience to rubble before the bad men get here, they will have nothing to destroy. — J. Budziszewski

He is what He is and there was never a time when he wasn't. — J. Budziszewski

If anthropological data suggests something short of the ideal, that is not because nothing is universal, but because two universals are in conflict: universal moral knowledge and universal desire to evade it. The first one we owe to our creation. The second we owe to our fall. — J. Budziszewski

As candle lights candle, [the spouses's] desire for each other kindles a desire for the Love of which their love is but a reflection. — J. Budziszewski

Atheist: 'I hear the voice of conscience, but I deny the reality of God.' St. Thomas: 'That is like listening to someone speak, but denying that anyone is there.' Atheist: 'That's right; nobody is.' St. Thomas: 'Then you deny not only God but conscience, because you consider it a hallucination.' Atheist: 'I misspoke. What I meant to say is that when I am listening to conscience, I am really listening to myself.' St. Thomas: 'Then you still deny conscience, because you deny its authority to judge you. Instead you claim to judge yourself, but no one can be judge in his own case. — J. Budziszewski

It is impossible to legislate without legislating morality. Try to think of a law that is not based on a moral idea; you won't be able to do it. — J. Budziszewski

An unsound thinker goes where his motives and interests invite him; a sound thinker goes where the argument takes him. — J. Budziszewski

morality would be undermined without a belief in divine judgment, but — J. Budziszewski

Pleasure comes naturally as a by-product of pursuing something else, like the good of another person, and the best way to ruin pleasure is to make it your goal. — J. Budziszewski

If I had questioned Harris further - "What do you mean when you say sex doesn't have to mean anything? Do people engage in it for no reason at all? Does it just happen, like a gurgle in the stomach, a can rattling down the street, or a screen door blowing shut in the breeze?" - perhaps he would have conceded that sex does have trivial meanings: a little pleasure, a little fun, a little relief from boredom and desire. This wouldn't be much of a concession. Sex would mean something, but only in the way that eating a peanut means something, chewing on an ice cube means something, scratching an itch means something. There would be no more call to rhapsodize about the touch of a man and a woman than to compose sonnets about the communion of a picnicker with his mayonnaise. — J. Budziszewski

The whole meaning of morality is a rule that we ought to obey whether we like it or not. If so, then the idea of creating a morality we like better is incoherent. Moreover, it would seem that until we had created our new morality, we would have no standard by which to criticize God. Since we have not yet created one, the standard by which we judge Him must be the very standard that He gave us. If it is good enough to judge Him by, then why do we need a new one? — J. Budziszewski