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The natural law is an instrument for progress, not a weapon of revolution.

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
Law
Natural
Weapon
Instrument
Instruments
Weapons
Revolution
Progress

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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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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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Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.
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...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 of their lot.
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...only the unscrupulous or shortsighted can defend pollution and degradation of the countryside.
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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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We cannot make a heaven on earth, though we may make a hell.
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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.
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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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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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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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Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle.
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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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A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
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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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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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Despite much talk in this land about religious freedom, churches and their schools now confront grave difficulties.
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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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