Prospects for Conservatives Quotes

“What is the object of human life? The enlightened conservative does not believe that the end or aim of life is competition; or success; or enjoyment; or longevity; or power; or possessions. He believes instead, that the object of life is Love. He knows that the just and ordered society is that in which Love governs us, so far as Love ever can reign in this world of sorrows; and he
knows that the anarchical or the tyrannical society is that in which Love lies corrupt. He has learnt that Love is the source of all being, and that Hell itself is ordained by Love. He understands that Death, when we have finished the part that was assigned to us, is the reward of Love. And he
apprehends the truth that the greatest happiness ever granted to a man is the privilege of being happy in the hour of his death.

He has no intention of converting this human society of ours into an efficient machine for efficient machine-operators, dominated by master mechanics. Men are put into this world, he realizes, to
struggle, to suffer, to contend against the evil that is in their neighbors and in themselves, and to aspire toward the triumph of Love. They are put into this world to live like men, and to die like men. He seeks to preserve a society which allows men to attain manhood, rather than keeping them within bonds of perpetual childhood. With Dante, he looks upward from this place of slime, this world of gorgons and chimeras, toward the light which gives Love to this poor earth and all the stars. And, with Burke, he knows that "they will never love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”
― Russell Kirk, Prospects for Conservatives

“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.”
― Russell Kirk, Prospects for Conservatives

“Most men and women are good only from habit, or out of deference to the opinions of their neighbors, the friend to tradition argues; and to deprive them of their habits, customs, and precepts, in order to benefit them in some novel way, may leave them morally and socially adrift, more harmed by their loss of ethical sanctions than helped by the fancied new benefit.”
― Russell Kirk, Prospects for Conservatives

“The thinking conservative knows that the outward signs of disorder, personal or social, very often are no more than the symptoms of an inner ravaging sickness, not to be put down by ointments and cosmetics. He is inclined to look for the real causes of our troubles in the heart of man - in our ancient proclivity toward sin, in a loneliness of spirit that conjures up devils, in twisted historical roots beneath the parched ground of modern existence, in venerable impulses of human nature which, when frustrated, make our life one long lingering death. He knows, moreover, that the task for the prudent counselor and the prudent statesman is to make life tolerable, not to make it perfect.”
― Russell Kirk, Prospects for Conservatives

“There is no such thing as a General Will (the delusion of Rousseau) or the Virtue of the Proletariat (the delusion of Marx) or the Rational Citizen (the delusion of John Stuart Mill). No mysterious wisdom abides in the bosom of the People to which we can appeal in this hour of our need. The public is not going to protest against stupid television programs or hysterical newspapers or the decay of our schools. The public, or the masses, have no mind or coherence, accurately speaking. In our time, the public takes what it is given.”
― Russell Kirk, Prospects for Conservatives

“When a society is advancing in some respects, usually it is declining in others.”
― Russell Kirk, Prospects for Conservatives