Best Russell Kirk Quotes
- If men are discharged of reverence for ancient usage, they will treat this world, almost certainly, as if it were their private property, to be… Almost Certainly
- The decay of old aristocratic prejudices against greedy speculation, the undermining of orthodox Christian faith (which forbids avarice)... the debauching of agriculture to a gross… Agriculture
- To complete the rout of traditionalists, in America an impression began to arise that the new industrial and acquisitive interests are the conservative interest, that… Accumulation
- Rather than ennobling the public mind and cementing the social fabric, applied science speedily became the chief weapon of a gross individualism, which was anathema… Adams
- The automobile, practical since 1906, was proceeding to disintegrate and stamp anew the pattern of communication, manners, and city life in the United States, by… Absolute
- Humility, which Burke ranked high among the virtues, is the only effectual restraint upon this congenital vanity; yet our world has nearly forgotten the nature… Among
- The principle of real leadership ignored, the immortal objects of society forgotten, practical conservatism degenerated into mere laudation of private enterprise, economic policy almost wholly… Almost Wholly
- To check centralization and usurping of power ... we require a new laissez-faire. The old laissez-faire was founded upon a misapprehension of human nature, an… Atoms
- Why do we not exhaust the heritage of the ages, spiritual and material for our immediate pleasure, and let posterity go hang? So far as… Advance
- ...ambition without pious restraint must end in failure, often involving in its ruin that beautiful reverence which solaces common men for the obscurity and poverty… Ambition
- And Burke, could he see our century, never would concede that a consumption-society, so near to suicide, is the end for which Providence has prepared… Burke
- There are no lost causes because there are no gained causes. Causes
- Prejudice is not bigotry or superstition, although prejudice sometimes may degenerate into these. Prejudice is pre-judgment, the answer with which intuition and ancestral consensus of… Ancestral
- Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this world.… Ability
- Even the wisest of mankind cannot live by reason alone; pure arrogant reason, denying the claims of prejudice (which commonly are also the claims of… Alone
- I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful. I despised sophisters… Any
- The twentieth-century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of the spirit and character – with the perennial problem of the inner order… All
- If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul. Commonwealth
- It is good for a student to be poor. Getting and spending, the typical American college student lays waste his powers. Work and contemplation don't… American
- In any society, order is the first need of all. Liberty and justice may be established only after order is tolerably secure. But the libertarians… Absolute
- Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light. Bring