71 Quotes by Russell Kirk

Privilege, in any society, is the reward of duties performed.

The word ‘philosopher’ means ‘lover of wisdom.’ Also there is a Greek word to describe the philosopher’s opponent: that word is ‘philodoxer,’ meaning ‘lover of opinion’ – that is, an opinionated man suffering from vain wishes, who passionately pursues illusion. Out of the doxa, the false opinion fanatically held, comes disorder in the soul and disorder in the body politic.

Schooling deprived of religious insights is wretched education.

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.

In the Middle Ages, as in Classical times, the academy possessed freedom unknown to other bodies and persons because the philosopher, the scholar, and the student were looked upon as men consecrated to the service of the Truth; and that Truth was not simply a purposeless groping after miscellaneous information, but a wisdom to be obtained, however imperfectly, from a teleological search.

Man’s rights are linked with man’s duties, and when they are distorted into extravagant claims for a species of freedom and equality and worldly aggrandizement which human character cannot sustain, they degenerate from rights to vices.

Tradition is a guide to the permanent qualities in society and thought and private life which need to be preserved in one form or another, throughout the process of inevitable change.

The resources of nature, like those of spirit, are running out, and all that a conscientious man can aspire to be is a literal conservative, hoarding what remains of culture and of natural wealth against the fierce appetites of modern life.

The mass of mankind, Burke implies, reason hardly at all, in the higher sense, nor ever can: deprived of folk-wisdom and folk-law, which are prejudice and prescription, they can do no more than cheer the demagogue, enrich the charlatan, and submit to the despot.