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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

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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
Ethical
Humans
Called
Theme
Book
Books
Aim
Mean
Taken
Permanent
Eliot
Great
Means
Majors
Norms
Every
Action
Themes
Things
Art
Major
Norm
Men
Form
Deeper
Literary
Human
Teach

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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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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 opinion supply a man when he lacks either time or knowledge to arrive at a decision predicated upon pure reason.
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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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Privilege, in any society, is the reward of duties performed.
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The ACLU has been able to harass out of existence public expressions of faith.
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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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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 man.
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If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul.
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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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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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If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilizations escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite.
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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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Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle.
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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 consumed for their sensual gratification and thus they will destroy in their lust for enjoyment the property of future generations, of their own contemporaries, and indeed their very own capital.
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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.
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Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.
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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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Locke contended that government originates out of the necessity for protecting property.
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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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