“Everyone has a grievance. These days soliciters are offended if you merely politely decline to talk with them. Person at the door: Are you J. Budziszewski? Me: Who are you? Person: Are you J. Budziszewski? Me: Who are you? Person: Do you have such-and-such in your house? Me: Are you selling something? Person: Do you have such-and-such in your house? Me: Are you selling something? Person: [Long pause.] Not necessarily. Me: Thank you. I’m not interested. [I quietly close the door.] - I can understand why the soliciter was frustrated. It’s harder to make a sale when you are forced to begin by saying that you want to. What I don’t understand is why she was offended. This is my house.”

J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023 [https://undergroundthomist.org/antipasto]

“It was a wise instinct by which heaven was symbolized by wings that are free as the wind, and hell symbolized by chains.”

G.K. Chesterton in Illustrated London News February 15, 1930, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 2 (Nov.-Dec. 2022)

“The two great natural goods of marriage – the turning of the great wheel of the generations, and the union of a man and woman who cooperate in turning it – cannot be separated without damage to each of them. To suppress either one for the sake of happiness is to poison the very roots of joy.”

J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” May 8, 2023 [https://www.undergroundthomist.org/things-i-had-to-learn]

“Previous civilizations have degenerated. Previous ages have marched into the dark not knowing that they were marching into the dark. But in any previous time, were artists, scholars, and thinkers so eager to explain that degeneration was really progress?”

J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023 [https://undergroundthomist.org/antipasto]

“Every man carries with him the standard by which we judge him, even if he always falls short of it. That is one of the things in which all men are equal; and it is a sort of implicit image of man, which the mystics called the image of God.”

G.K. Chesterton in Columbia May 1925, quoted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 2 (Nov.-Dec. 2022)

“The observation that it is difficult to portray a really good person in fiction is nothing new. But why do our contemporary novelists find it so difficult even to portray a person we wouldn’t mind meeting? Even when they try? There are exceptions. Not many. The appalling thought occurs to me that maybe they like their characters.”

J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023 [https://undergroundthomist.org/antipasto ]

“SIGNING CONTRACTS WITH DEMONIC FORCES has every characteristic of the dream of the satanist. So why would it be taken as a topic for artistic and religious inspiration? A casual glace to the academic and artistic institutions throughout the world gives evidence that the world has taken seriously the call to give their souls, or at least their art, to the Devil.”

Patrick Gill “How the Devil Loses a Deal” in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 2 (Nov.-Dec. 2022)

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.