--- title: "2 American society Quotes By Russell Kirk" description: "2 American society quotes by Russell Kirk. Plus more from Russell Kirk and more American society sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6df/russell-kirk-6909_american-society_t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-m_1855898.jpg" --- > [ “\[T\]he just society is one in which each man may seek the things which belong to his nature. By contrast, a system of economic totalitarianism treats the industrious and the idle, the able and the stupid, as if they were… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-man-may-seek-the-things-which/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6df/russell-kirk-6909_american-society_t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-m_1855898.jpg) > [“Two centuries ago, the United States settled into a permanent political order, after fourteen years of violence and heated debate. Two centuries ago, France fell into ruinous disorder that ran its course for twenty-four years. In both countries there resounded…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/two-centuries-ago-the-united-states-settled-into-a-permanent/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77e/russell-kirk-6909_american-history_two-centuries-ago-the-united-states-sett_2006003.jpg) ## Other authors on American society - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b011/author-henry-giroux-41521.jpg) Henry Giroux 9 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/american-society/henry-giroux/) - [ ![](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wp-content/uploads/sms4s/authors/processed/b018/author-noam-chomsky-71799.jpg) Noam Chomsky 5 quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/american-society/noam-chomsky/) ## More by Russell Kirk > [“Only portions of the globe still enslaved by the enemies of the people refrained from congratulating President Zingu and Premier Villiers-Kolama upon the astounding…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/only-portions-of-the-globe-still-enslaved-by-the-enemies-of-the/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [“Manfredo -- Your Excellency -- how can you, even you, hope...?" "Life is a jest, and all things show it, my dear," I replied;…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/manfredo-your-excellency-how-can-you-even-you-hope-life-is-a-jest-and/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [“Today, as in the past, we ought to remind ourselves that the true natural law is not a mere congeries of appetites, and that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/today-as-in-the-past-we-ought-to-remind-ourselves-that-the-true/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/moral-decay-first-hampers-and-then-strangles-honest-government/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [ “Men are put into this world, he \[the enlightened conservative\] realizes, to struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/men-are-put-into-this-world-he-the-enlightened-conservative-realizes/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Mine was not an Enlightened mind, I now was aware: it was a Gothic mind, medieval in its temper and structure. I did not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/mine-was-not-an-enlightened-mind-i-now-was-aware-it-was-a-gothic-mind/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Humility, which Burke ranked high among the virtues, is the only effectual restraint upon this congenital vanity; yet our world has nearly forgotten the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/humility-which-burke-ranked-high-among-the-virtues-is-the-only/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Rousseau and his disciples were resolved to force men to be free; in most of the world, they triumphed; men are set free from…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/rousseau-and-his-disciples-were-resolved-to-force-men-to-be-free-in/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/politics-moves-upward-into-ethics-and-ethics-ascends-to-theology/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [If men are discharged of reverence for ancient usage, they will treat this world, almost certainly, as if it were their private property, to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/if-men-are-discharged-of-reverence-for-ancient-usage-they-will-treat/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [“The Conservative Mind describes a cast of intellect or a type of character, an inclination to cherish the permanent things in human existence. On…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/the-conservative-mind-describes-a-cast-of-intellect-or-a-type-of/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Privilege, in any society, is the reward of duties performed.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/privilege-in-any-society-is-the-reward-of-duties-performed/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [“There are six canons of conservative thought: 1) Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/there-are-six-canons-of-conservative-thought-1-belief-in-a/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [The Secular City, having legislated and litigated itself out of any entanglement with the City of God, would be a hell upon earth .](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/the-secular-city-having-legislated-and-litigated-itself-out-of-any/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) > [Why do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/why-do-we-not-exhaust-the-heritage-of-the-ages-spiritual-and-material/) [Russell Kirk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/russell-kirk/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/american-society/russell-kirk/#itemlist", "name": "2 American society Quotes By Russell Kirk", "numberOfItems": 2, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“[T]he just society is one in which each man may seek the things which belong to his nature. By contrast, a system of economic totalitarianism treats the industrious and the idle, the able and the stupid, as if they were alike--which is contrary to the laws of justice. . . . American society is imperfect; but all human societies are imperfect in some degree. The American economy has its faults; but they are faults that may be modified. A free economy, because of its opportunities for choice and competition, has always within it the possibilities of improvement; it does not repress the reformer. But a totalitarian economy, hostile to any sort of criticism, founded on envy and terror, cannot amend its ways without ceasing to be; it leaves no room for prudent reformation. When something in a free economy goes wrong, there is temporary trouble, but the variety of talents and the elasticity of the economic structure make mending fairly easy. When, however, something in a totalitarian economy goes wrong, there is general and serious suffering, because the master-plan of the regimented economy is inelastic and arbitrary. The free economy, in such conditions, penalizes only a few by loss of profit, or resort to bankruptcy. But when the totalitarian economy is brought to account for its mistakes, it seeks scapegoats; and the concentration camp substitutes for the bankruptcy-court.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Russell Kirk" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-man-may-seek-the-things-which/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6df/russell-kirk-6909_american-society_t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-m_1855898.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6df/russell-kirk-6909_american-society_t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-m_1855898.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6df/russell-kirk-6909_american-society_t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-m_1855898.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“[T]he just society is one in which each man may seek the things which belong to his nature. By contrast, a…” — Russell Kirk", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“Two centuries ago, the United States settled into a permanent political order, after fourteen years of violence and heated debate. Two centuries ago, France fell into ruinous disorder that ran its course for twenty-four years. In both countries there resounded much ardent talk of rights--rights natural, rights prescriptive. . . . [F]anatic ideology had begun to rage within France, so that not one of the liberties guaranteed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man could be enjoyed by France's citizens. One thinks of the words of Dostoievski: \"To begin with unlimited liberty is to end with unlimited despotism.\" . . . In striking contrast, the twenty-two senators and fifty-nine representatives who during the summer of 1789 debated the proposed seventeen amendments to the Constitution were men of much experience in representative government, experience acquired within the governments of their several states or, before 1776, in colonial assembles and in the practice of the law. Many had served in the army during the Revolution. They decidedly were political realists, aware of how difficult it is to govern men's passions and self-interest. . . . Among most of them, the term democracy was suspect. The War of Independence had sufficed them by way of revolution. . . . The purpose of law, they knew, is to keep the peace. To that end, compromises must be made among interests and among states. Both Federalists and Anti-Federalists ranked historical experience higher than novel theory. They suffered from no itch to alter American society radically; they went for sound security. The amendments constituting what is called the Bill of Rights were not innovations, but rather restatements of principles at law long observed in Britain and in the thirteen colonies. . . . The Americans who approved the first ten amendments to their Constitution were no ideologues. Neither Voltaire nor Rousseau had any substantial following among them. Their political ideas, with few exceptions, were those of English Whigs. The typical textbook in American history used to inform us that Americans of the colonial years and the Revolutionary and Constitutional eras were ardent disciples of John Locke. This notion was the work of Charles A. Beard and Vernon L. Parrington, chiefly. It fitted well enough their liberal convictions, but . . . it has the disadvantage of being erroneous. . . . They had no set of philosophes inflicted upon them. Their morals they took, most of them, from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Their Bill of Rights made no reference whatever to political abstractions; the Constitution itself is perfectly innocent of speculative or theoretical political arguments, so far as its text is concerned. John Dickinson, James Madison, James Wilson, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason, and other thoughtful delegates to the Convention in 1787 knew something of political theory, but they did not put political abstractions into the text of the Constitution. . . . Probably most members of the First Congress, being Christian communicants of one persuasion or another, would have been dubious about the doctrine that every man should freely indulge himself in whatever is not specifically prohibited by positive law and that the state should restrain only those actions patently \"hurtful to society.\" Nor did Congress then find it necessary or desirable to justify civil liberties by an appeal to a rather vague concept of natural law . . . . Two centuries later, the provisions of the Bill of Rights endure--if sometimes strangely interpreted. Americans have known liberty under law, ordered liberty, for more than two centuries, while states that have embraced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, with its pompous abstractions, have paid the penalty in blood.”", "creator": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Russell Kirk" }, "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/russell-kirk/two-centuries-ago-the-united-states-settled-into-a-permanent/", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77e/russell-kirk-6909_american-history_two-centuries-ago-the-united-states-sett_2006003.jpg", "contentUrl": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77e/russell-kirk-6909_american-history_two-centuries-ago-the-united-states-sett_2006003.jpg", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/77e/russell-kirk-6909_american-history_two-centuries-ago-the-united-states-sett_2006003.jpg", "width": 1080, "height": 1080, "caption": "“Two centuries ago, the United States settled into a permanent political order, after fourteen years of…” — Russell Kirk", "creditText": "SMS4Smile Quotes", "creator": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#organization" } } } } ] }, { "@type": "CollectionPage", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/american-society/russell-kirk/#webpage", "url": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/american-society/russell-kirk/", "name": "American society Quotes by Russell Kirk", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/#website" }, "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/american-society/russell-kirk/#itemlist" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/6df/russell-kirk-6909_american-society_t-he-just-society-is-one-in-which-each-m_1855898.jpg" }, "description": "2 American society quotes by Russell Kirk. 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