“The middle layers of society, where people see each other face to face, offer a middle ground between radical individualism and extreme centralization. Our political life need not consist of a recurring choice between having the federal government invade and… — 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
“Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle,” Burke writes.” — Yuval Levin Copy Share
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
“The government of human beings, he argued, is a matter not of applying cold rules and principles, but of tending to warm sentiments and… — Yuval Levin Copy Share
“Indeed, Burke argues that change, understood in this way as “a principle of growth,” is not only permissible but essential, and essential precisely to… — Yuval Levin Copy Share
