Home > Author > J. Budziszewski
61 " Justice requires acute perception of what is really due to the other person; in "
― J. Budziszewski , The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction
62 " Courage requires not mere fearlessness but a right estimate of what things are worth fighting for; in "
63 " A secular person treats as the Highest Standard something that isn't the Highest Standard. "
― J. Budziszewski , Ask Me Anything: Provocative Answers for College Students
64 " 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 , On the Meaning of Sex
65 " 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 , What We Can't Not Know: A Guide
66 " Experience does not interpret itself. "
67 " 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. "
68 " 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. "
69 " 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 "
70 " 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. "
71 " 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. "
72 " The chief objection to playing God is that someone else is God already. "
73 " 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. "
74 " God could have made a single self-sufficient sex that felt perfectly complete and didn't long for anybody, but He didn't. Why not? Do you know what I think? I think God made us male and female because we need to long for each other. It's not good not to long for someone; it's not good to be absorbed in yourself. Somehow, each of us needs to get out of self. With the help of God's grace, the marriage of a man and woman can make that happen. Solitary sex can't do that, it sinks him into a looking-glass idol of the self. Casual sex can't do that, it merely uses the other for the purposes of the self. But 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
75 " Experience assists wisdom because the universe has been designed to make it so. "
76 " Those who do not accept conscience as a teacher must face it as an accuser. "
77 " 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) "
78 " 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 , Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law
79 " 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 "
80 " Natural function and personal meaning are not alien to each other, they are connected. In "
