“Doing things and denouncing things are both quite easy, as compared with thinking about them.”
G.K. Chesterton, “On Keeping Your Hair On,” in Sidelights, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 9 #5 (March 2006)
“Even the most obvious things can be doubted. The test of a truth is not whether I doubt it, or whether I am able to doubt it, but whether the reasons for thinking it is true are better than the reasons not to.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“There are some truths which do not have to be proven, but are needed for working out all the other truths.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“There is more than one kind of intelligence, and I am a fool if I dismiss the kinds I don’t have as unintelligent.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“Unless there is a good reason for its being there, do not inject opinion into a piece of writing. We all have opinions about almost everything, and the temptation to toss them in is great. To air one’s views gratuitously, however, is to imply that the demand for them is brisk, which may not be the case…”
William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White Elements of Style [I totally disagree; all writing is an attempt to persuade someone of a point of view.]
In my latest Epoch Times column, I describe how our universities are unraveling financially and academically as part of a cascading set of policy disasters in which the one thing we never do is go back and reverse previous mistakes instead of piling on fresh ones.
In my latest National Post column I warn my posterity, and yours, why artificial intelligence is far and away the most dangerous and urgent problem they face.
“If you believe in a principle, never damage it with poor expression.”
Engineer Charles Parson, on why they risked arrest by taking the steam turbine ship Turbinia through the big naval review for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee to show that this kind of engine was much faster, quoted on “Incredible Speed: Turbinia” [https://youtu.be/rcQN9UxEEcM?t=336].