“if we don’t know where we are sailing, every wind will take us there.”
Fred Iklé in National Review March 7, 1994
“Refusing to repent is equivalent to refusing to be forgiven.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“If you were any more shallow you’d bulge.”
One of mine from November 2004 – and at one point I used it about Justin Trudeau in a column.
“A feeling cannot be promised. When we promise love, therefore, we are not promising to have a feeling. What we are promising is an enduring commitment of the will to the true good of the beloved – even when feelings change.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]
“as was said concerning Augustus Cesar, and after of Septimius Severus, ‘that either they should never have been born, or else they should never have died,’ they did so much mischief in the pursuit and ascent of their greatness, and so much good when they were established”
Francis Bacon The Advancement of Learning
“The attribute view of personhood – the view that you don’t count as a person, with moral dignity and rights, unless you have such attributes as the ability to make plans and carry them out – is widely deployed in the debates over abortion. But it also carries over into everyday relationships. ‘You must have the attributes we value,’ whatever these may be, for example holding the same opinions, ‘or we treat you like dirt.’”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023 [https://undergroundthomist.org/antipasto]
“And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination – you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.... Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency – the devotion to efficiency.”
Marlow, in Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
“You play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back of the jersey.”
Boston Celtics hall-of-fame centre Robert Parish (quoted for instance on https://www.bostoncelticshistory.com/item/the-most-from-the-chief/).