46 Quotes by J. Budziszewski

We are put together in such a way that although we can be pushed and pulled and drowsied by flickering images, we cannot be satisfied by them; we know too much even in oblivion. Fallow knowledge troubles our sleep. We lie under the prickling enchantment of the image carved into our hearts, which is stronger than the counterspell and can never be quite scratched out.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.