Russell Kirk Quotes - Page 2

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• 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 of humility. Submission to the dictates of humility formerly was made palatable to man by the doctrine of grace; that elaborate doctrine has been overwhelmed by modern presumption.

  Russell Kirk

  Humility, Men, Vanity

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays”, p.364, Open Road Media

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• 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 exultation of individuality (in private character often a virtue) to the condition of a political dogma, which destroyed the spirit of community and reduced men to so many equipollent atoms of humanity, without sense of brotherhood or purpose.

  Russell Kirk

  Character, Men, Community

  Russell Kirk (1978). “The conservative mind: from Burke to Eliot”

  34 Copy quote

• Nothing is more conservative than conservation

  Russell Kirk

  Conservative, Conservation

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• Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

  Russell Kirk

  Reform, Surgery

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Politics of Prudence”, p.34, Open Road Media

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• The aim of great books is ethical: to teach what it means to be a man. Every major form of literary art has taken for its deeper themes what T.S. Eliot called "the permanent things"-the norms of human action.

  Russell Kirk

  Art, Book, Taken

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• Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.

  Russell Kirk

  Moving, Interesting, Ethics

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• Either order in the cosmos is real, or all is chaos. If we are adrift in chaos, then the fragile egalitarian doctrines and emancipating programs of the revolutionary reformers have no significance; for in a vortex of chaos, only force and appetite signify.

  Russell Kirk

  Real, Order, Doctrine

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.30, Regnery Publishing

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• The issue of environmental quality is one which transcends traditional political boundaries. It is a cause which can attract, and very sincerely, liberals, conservatives, radicals, reactionaries, freaks, and middle-class straights.

  Russell Kirk

  Environmental Quality, Class, Issues

  14 Copy quote

• 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 conscience), leads to a wasteland of withered hopes and crying loneliness, empty of God and man: the wilderness in which Satan tempted Christ was not more dreadful than the arid expanse of intellectual vanity deprived of tradition and intuition, where modern man is tempted by his own pride.

  Russell Kirk

  Loneliness, Pride, Men

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.41, Regnery Publishing

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• Individualism is a denial that life has any meaning except the gratification of the ego; in politics it must end in anarchy. It is not possible for one man to be both Christian and Individualist.

  Russell Kirk

  Christian, Men, Ego

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• A society which denies the heart its role becomes, in very short order, a heartless society.

  Russell Kirk

  Heart, Order, Interesting

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• Some 'separation' zealots would expunge any vestige of religious observance in public schools. Many of the same anti-religious fanatics would like to wipe out of existence all church-related schools, by regulation or taxation, so that universal ignorance of the life of spirit should prevail.

  Russell Kirk

  Christian, Religious, School

  Russell Kirk (1986). “The Assault on religion: commentaries on the decline of religious liberty”, Univ Pr of Amer

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• ...only the unscrupulous or shortsighted can defend pollution and degradation of the countryside.

  Russell Kirk

  Degradation, Conservative, Pollution

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• The ACLU has been able to harass out of existence public expressions of faith.

  Russell Kirk

  Christian, Religious, Expression

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• Ordinary human laws are the means - however imperfect - by which we express our understanding of the enduring moral law.

  Russell Kirk

  Mean, Law, Understanding

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Roots of American Order”, p.118, Open Road Media

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• Locke contended that government originates out of the necessity for protecting property.

  Russell Kirk

  Government, Property

  Russell Kirk (1978). “The conservative mind: from Burke to Eliot”

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• Life is for action, and if we desire to know anything, we must make up our minds to be ignorant about much.

  Russell Kirk

  Ignorant, Mind, Desire

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• Mine was not an Enlightened mind, I now was aware: it was a Gothic mind, medieval in its temper and structure. I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful.

  Russell Kirk

  Organization, Perfect, Mind

  Russell Kirk (1963). “Confessions of a bohemian Tory: episodes and reflections of a vagrant career”

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• The aim of any good constitution is to achieve in a society a high degree of political harmony, so that order and justice and freedom may be maintained.

  Russell Kirk

  Wisdom, Order, Justice

  Russell Kirk (1990). “The Conservative Constitution”, Gateway Books

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• 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 surrendered to special interests.

  Russell Kirk

  Real, Special, Principles

  Russell Kirk (1978). “The conservative mind: from Burke to Eliot”

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• 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 and calculators; I was groping for faith, honor, and prescriptive loyalties. I would have given any number of neo-classical pediments for one poor battered gargoyle.

  Russell Kirk

  Loyalty, Organization, Numbers

  Russell Kirk (2014). “The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays”, p.213, Open Road Media

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• 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 conservatism is simply a political argument in defense of large accumulations of private property, that expansion, centralization, and accumulation are the tenets of conservatives. From this confusion, from the popular belief that Hamilton was the founder of American conservatism, the forces of tradition in the United States never have fully escaped.

  Russell Kirk

  America, Confusion, Political

  Russell Kirk (1978). “The conservative mind: from Burke to Eliot”

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• Principle #6: Recognition that change and reform are not identical, and that innovation is a devouring conflagration more often than it is a torch of progress.

  Russell Kirk

  Innovation, Progress, Torches

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• 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 mix, and university days ought to be days of contemplation.

  Russell Kirk

  College, Typical, Waste

  Russell Kirk (1963). “Confessions of a bohemian Tory: episodes and reflections of a vagrant career”

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• True conformity to the dictates of nature requires reverence for the past and solicitude for the future. 'Nature' is not simply the sensation of the passing moment; it is eternal, though we evanescent men experience only a fragment of it. We have no right to imperil the happiness of posterity by impudently tinkering with the heritage of humanity.

  Russell Kirk

  Past, Men, Humanity

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.57, Regnery Publishing

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