“I RECEIVED A LITTLE WHILE AGO a letter to which no name or address was attached, which touched me beyond expression. A great deal of it was too personal to treat of here, and for this reason especially I regret the concealment of its origin. But the more generally discussable part concerned itself chiefly with a query as to my meaning when I said in this paper something to this effect: ‘No one can be miserable who has known anything worth being miserable about.’ The remark was written as remarks in daily papers ought, in my opinion, to be written, in a wild moment; but it happens, nevertheless, to be more or less true. What I meant was that our attitude towards existence, if we have suffered deprivation, must always be conditioned by the fact that deprivation implies that existence has given us something of immense value. To say that we have lost in the lottery of existence is to say that we have gained: for existence gives us our money beforehand. It is quite impossible to imagine ourselves as really calling, as Huxley expressed it, the Cosmos to the bar.”

G.K. Chesterton “The Philosophy of Gratitude” reprinted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 26 # 4 (March-April 2023) p. 5 [including start].

“Constantine, sometimes (Heaven knows why) called Constantine the Great, was emperor.”

Hendrik Willem van Loon The Story of Mankind

“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 ]