J. Budziszewski Quotes

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

“Marvin: – La necrofilia ce l’abbiamo sepolta dentro. Uno dei miei libri, Storia della tortura e della morte, parla delle atrocità che abbiamo commesso in nome della giustizia e della vendetta. Spesso erano peggiori dei crimini originali. L’uomo è un animale sanguinario.”

“Master Plato once said that Lux est umbra Dei”

“The voice of the people is the voice of God. (Vox populi vox dei.)”

“Without books no one can be a good teacher nor even a good student of this art.”

“Nel profondo avrei tanto voluto tagliare il filo che mi teneva avvinta ai miei tredici anni, reciderlo dalla radice, ma questa quercia millenaria aveva affondato le sue innumerevoli ramificazioni intorno all'anima e stringeva così forte, da inchiodarmi al terreno dei ricordi.”

“All right, all right, you go right on thinking you an act of God created in his image, and I’ll go right on thinking I’m descended from an ape. When you look in the mirror I should think you’d feel pretty discouraged; I wouldn’t be happy to look at myself and think that my faces is an Imago Dei. It wouldn’t make me feel I’d done very well by God. But when I look in the mirror and that I’m descended from an ape, I feel I’ve done remarkably well.”

“God wants man to be His creature. Furthermore, He wants him to be His PARTNER. There is a causa Dei in the world. God wants light, not darkness. He wants cosmos, not chaos. He wants peace, not disorder. He wants man to administer and to receive justice rather than to inflict and to suffer injustice. He wants man to live according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh. He wants man bound and pledged to Him rather than to any other authority. He wants man to live and not to die. Because He wills these things God is Lord, Shepherd, and Redeemer of man, who in His holiness and mercy meets His creature; who judges and forgives, rejects and receives, condemns and saves.”

“Sono stata ammaliata dal fascino sfacciato e intrigante della Belle Epoque.Sfacciato perché, per la prima volta, in quell’epoca le distinzioni di classe perdevano d’importanza davanti all’irrompere dei tempi moderni. In effetti lo stile di vita borghese si evolve raggiungendo e talvolta superando in splendore, classe e mondanità l’aristocrazia medesima.Intrigante in quanto l’umanità accoglie unanime un rinnovamento sociale, culturale, tecnico, artistico senza precedenti.”

“Up until the 1950s the subject of the missionary movement was referred to as "missions" in the plural form. In fact, the term "missions" was first used in its current context by the Jesuits in the sixteenth century. But the International Missionary Council discussions in the 1950s on the missio- Dei convinced most that the mission of the Triune God was prior to any of the number of missions by Christians during the two millennia of church history. Consequently, since there was only one mission, the plural form has dropped out of familir usage and the singular form, "mission," has replaced it for the most part. Nevertheless, most churches and lay-persons hang on the plural missions. For that reason, and to make our point clear here, we will refer to it in this work from time to time while alerting believers to the coming change.”