When one sets to work, one should be liberal but strict, gentle but firm, frank but reverent, orderly but alert, compliant but courageous, forthright but warm, easy going but unyielding, resolute but sincere, forceful but righteous. If one can manifest these principles, it is excellent indeed!
If one can show three of these nine virtues daily, if morning and night one is reverent and diligent, one can maintain his household.
If one sternly promotes and respects six of the nine virtues daily, and serves sincerely, one can maintain his state.
If one accepts them completely and applies them generally, carrying out all nine of these virtues, those with talent will serve in office and all the functionaries will be made respectful and cautious.
Do not allow the evil, deprived, the cunning plotters, or men otherwise unfit to hold office. This is what is called disrupting the affairs of Heaven.
~The Grand Scribe’s Records (by Ssu-ma Ch’ien [Sima Qian], volume 1, William Nienhauser editor/translator) approximately 100 BC
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We hope you will join us in The Imaginative Conservative community. The Imaginative Conservative is an online journal for those who seek the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. We address culture, liberal learning, politics, political economy, literature, the arts and the American Republic in the tradition of Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot, Edmund Burke, Irving Babbitt, Wilhelm Roepke, Robert Nisbet, Richard Weaver, M.E. Bradford, Eric Voegelin, Christopher Dawson, Paul Elmer More, and other leaders of Imaginative Conservatism. Some conservatives may look at the state of Western culture and the American Republic and see a huge dark cloud which seems ready to unleash a storm that may well wash away what we most treasure of our inherited ways. Others focus on the silver lining which may be found in the next generation of traditional conservatives who have been inspired by Dr. Kirk and his like. We hope that The Imaginative Conservative answers T.S. Eliot’s call to “redeem the time, redeem the dream.” The Imaginative Conservative offers to our families, our communities, and the Republic, a conservatism of hope, grace, charity, gratitude, and prayer.
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