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Not by force of arms are civilizations held together, but by subtle threads of moral and intellectual principle.

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
Principle
Intellectual
Civilization
Arms
Threads
Principles
Civilizations
Moral
Thread
Force
Subtle
Together
Held

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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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Locke contended that government originates out of the necessity for protecting property.
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The natural law is an instrument for progress, not a weapon of revolution.
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The ACLU has been able to harass out of existence public expressions of faith.
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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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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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...only the unscrupulous or shortsighted can defend pollution and degradation of the countryside.
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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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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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A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
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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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Privilege, in any society, is the reward of duties performed.
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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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Schooling deprived of religious insights is wretched education.
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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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...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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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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Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.
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