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Real literature is something much better than a harmless instrument for getting through idle hours. The purpose of great literature is to help us to develop into full human beings.

Russell Kirk

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Russell Kirk
Age: 75 †
Born: 1918
Born: October 19
Died: 1994
Died: April 19
Historian
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Plymouth
Michigan
Great
Hours
Idle
Much
Help
Instrument
Something
Purpose
Develop
Helping
Instruments
Better
Beings
Human
Full
Humans
Literature
Real
Getting
Harmless

More quotes by Russell Kirk

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Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle.
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Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.
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Despite much talk in this land about religious freedom, churches and their schools now confront grave difficulties.
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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.
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...so mankind is now trapped by the failure of its energies and by the depletion of those natural resources that men have plundered wantonly.
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Ordinary human laws are the means - however imperfect - by which we express our understanding of the enduring moral law.
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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.
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There are no lost causes because there are no gained causes.
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The Secular City, having legislated and litigated itself out of any entanglement with the City of God, would be a hell upon earth .
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Privilege, in any society, is the reward of duties performed.
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Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.
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The ACLU has been able to harass out of existence public expressions of faith.
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Locke contended that government originates out of the necessity for protecting property.
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We cannot make a heaven on earth, though we may make a hell.
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A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
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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.
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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.
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The libertarian thinks that this world is chiefly a stage for the swaggering ego the conservative finds himself instead a pilgrim in a realm of mystery and wonder, where duty, discipline, and sacrifice are required-and where the reward is that love which passeth all understanding.
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Schooling deprived of religious insights is wretched education.
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Every right is married to a duty every freedom owes a corresponding responsibility and there cannot be genuine freedom unless there exists also genuine order, in the moral realm and in the social realm.
Russell Kirk