Russell Kirk at Piety Hill At the back of every discussion of the good society lies this question, 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, [...]
by Russell Kirk To speak of American conservative action…may seem a contradiction in terms. The instinct of the conservative, as Lord Hailsham observes, is to enjoy life as he finds it, not to mold society nearer to his heart’s desire; nor does he think of practical politics as the end and aim of being. Family life, [...]
Russell Kirk Without the peril of destruction of the best in civilization there would be no motive to conservative action and no honor in being a man. The poetic imagination…in some ages belongs principally to the radicals; but in our time it is in the keeping of the conservatives. There is something better [...]
by Russell Kirk Professors and priests are meant to be the conservators of mankind, to which end they are set among men, reminding us that we are not the flies of a summer. Their labor is to tell men that certain truths endure, that upon human nature a peculiar character has been stamped by the Creator [...]
Russell Kirk Conservatives must prepare society for Providential change, guiding the life that is taking form into the ancient shelter of Western and Christian civilization. For this, they will require the vision of Burke, the common sense of Adams, the courage of Randolph, the toleration of Tocqueville, the resolution of Calhoun, the [...]
President Reagan & Russell Kirk The conservative believes that men and nations possess free will, and that if a nation or a civilization tumbles to its ruin, such catastrophe is the consequence, for the most part, of the failure of heart and mind of the people who made up that nation… Essays on [...]
T.S. Eliot by T.S. Eliot We mean all sort of things, I know, by Beauty. But the essential advantage for a poet is not to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and [...]
Russell Kirk If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of [...]
Russell Kirk In the paragraphs below, from A Program for Conservatives, Dr. Kirk addresses conservatives with words which remind us of our pilgrim status in this world of tears. We are not called to material success. We are called to obedience. We are called to love. The True, the Good, and the Beautiful [...]
The twentieth century conservative is concerned, first of all, for the regeneration of spirit and character—with the perennial problem of the inner order of the soul, the restoration of the ethical understanding, and the religious sanction upon which any life worth living is founded. This is conservatism at its highest. —Russell Kirk Friends, may we [...]