Quotes from Douglas Wilson

When the parent is qualified to discipline, he probably does not feel like it, and when he feels like it, he is probably not qualified.

Be at peace with being lousy for a while. Chesterton once said that anything worth doing was worth doing badly. He was right. Only an insufferable egoist expects to be brilliant first time out.

Beware of anyone who claims to be neutral, for they always have an agenda.

Pace yourself in your reading. A little bit every day really adds up. If you read during sporadic reading jags, the fits and starts will not get you anywhere close to the amount of reading you will need to do. It is far better to walk a mile a day than to run five miles every other month. Make time for reading, and make a daily habit of it, even if it is a relatively small daily habit.

I believe firmly in plodding. Productivity is more a matter of diligent, long-distance hiking than it is one-hundred-yard dashing. Doing a little bit now is far better than hoping to do a lot on the morrow. So redeem the fifteen minute spaces. Chip away at it.

For the people of God, the Word of God leaves pleasant bruises.

We are like fruitflies, measuring everything in terms of our own lifespan. But since our lifespans are so short, our perspective is entirely wrong. God, who inhabits eternity, sees things differently. He knows that our lives are just a mist. We should trust Him. It was not that long ago that Jesus came and it will not be that long before He returns.

But for you to make this move would reveal the two fundamental tenets of true atheism. One: There is no God. Two: I hate Him.

Know something about the world, and by this I mean the world outside of books. This might require joining the Marines, or working on an oil rig or as a hash slinger at a truck stop in Kentucky. Know what it smells like out there. If everything you write smells like a library, then your prospective audience will be limited to those who like the smell of libraries.

I don't feel safe around anything when Jesus is not the Lord of it. Calvinism without Jesus is deadly; it's fatalism, it's simply Islam. We need Jesus. When the precious doctrines [of Calvinism] are used to perpetuate gloom, severity, introspection, accusations, morbidity, slander, gnat-stringing, and more, the soul is not safe.

Wealth is a gift from God, and pride is bequeathed to us from the devil.

I have often told people that they need to evaluate their lives by the video, and not by the snapshot. That is, they should not just look at one moment in time, but rather consider trajectories, tendencies, and narrative arc as well.

The TSA must think we're mushrooms. You know, the way they are trying to keep us in the dark, and the way they keep feeding us a fertilizing agent that comes from the south end of a north-bound cow.

The independence of art from worldview and worldview concerns is a myth. Every work of art is produced within a framework of worldview assumptions.

The fact that you can't remember things doesn't mean that you haven't been shaped by them.

God is not an actor within the larger scheme of things. He is not a muscle-bound Jupiter, bullying the littler ones. He is the Author of the whole thing. We never ask how much of Hamlet's role was contributed by Hamlet, and how much by Shakespeare. That is not a question that can be answered with 70/30 or 50/50 or 90/10. The right answer is 100/100. Hamlet's actions are all Hamlet's and they are all Shakespeare's. Douglas Wilson

In two days, it's hard to to get the quality you would normally want for a design project.

I'm having the time of my life and I'm glad people are enjoy it.

I've enjoyed being a part of something from the beginning, when we were still finding our footing.

Whether it was working on theatre sets or stage lighting, I didn't realize most all of the skills I was exposed to were going to come in handy later on when I became a designer.

They don't know they're living in a glass house.

The medievalist has the capacity, and the desire, to harmonize. He believes the planets sing in harmony; why cannot technology also sing?

There are lighter colors of granite and I like to break the rules.

Throughout the country, I see the same design problems and solutions over and over.