“The idea of forcing every thing to an artificial equality has something, at first view, very captivating in it,” Burke writes. “It… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy,” Burke wrote in the Reflections, “which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings, and which… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle,” Burke writes.” — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“What is remarkable in Burke’s first performance,” wrote his great nineteenth-century biographer John Morley, “is his discernment of the important fact that behind the… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“Burke argued that political parties were not, as many people insisted, factions each contending for its own particular advantage, but rather were bodies of… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“Believe me, sir,” he writes in the Reflections, “those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting of various descriptions of citizens,… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“Burke was not a sentimentalist, however.43 “Leave a man to his passions,” he wrote, “and you leave a wild beast to a savage and… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“The idea of forcing every thing to an artificial equality has something, at first view, very captivating in it,” Burke writes. “It has all… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“The middle layers of society, where people see each other face to face, offer a middle ground between radical individualism and extreme centralization. Our… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
“The experience of seeing differences of dogma made moot in practice by the bonds of family affection and neighborly respect was formative for him.… — Yuval Levin Copy Share Image
![“Burke was not a sentimentalist, however.43 “Leave a man to his passions,” he wrote, “and you leave a wild beast to a savage and capricious nature.”44 Rather, he argued that while politics does answer to reason, human reason does not interact directly with the world but is always mediated by our imagination, which helps us to give order and shape to the data we derive from our senses. One way or another, reason applies through the sentiments and passions, so it is crucial to tend to what he calls our “moral imagination” because left untended, it will direct our reason toward violence and disorder.45 The dark side of our sentiments is mitigated not by pure reason, but by more beneficent sentiments. We cannot be simply argued out of our vices, but we can be deterred from indulging them by the trust and love that develops among neighbors, by deeply established habits of order and peace, and by pride in our community or country. And part of the statesman’s difficult charge is keeping this balance together, acting rationally on this understanding of the limits of reason. “The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought therefore to be the first study of a statesman,” Burke asserts.46 It is for Burke another reason why politics can never be reduced to a simple application of logical axioms. As Burke’s contemporary William Hazlitt put it: “[Burke] knew that man had affections and passions and powers of imagination, as well as hunger and thirst and the sense of heat and cold. . . . He knew that the rules that form the basis of private morality are not founded in reason, that is, in the abstract properties of those things which are the subjects of them, but in the nature of man, and his capacity of being affected by certain things from habit, from imagination, and sentiment, as well as from reason.” quote by Yuval Levin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/469/yuval-levin-33921_character_burke-was-not-a-sentimentalist-however-4_1590351.jpg)
![“[T]heories inevitably can't be as complex as life itself.” quote by Yuval Levin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/883/yuval-levin-33921_complexity_t-heories-inevitably-can-t-be-as-complex_1982661.jpg)
