Russell Kirk Quotes About Liberty
-
Moral decay first hampers and then strangles honest government, regular commerce, and even the ability to take genuine pleasure in the goods of this world. Compulsion is applied from above as self-discipline relaxes below, and the last liberties expire under the weight of a unitary state.... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary that divided good from evil is overthrown; kings and nations are guided by chance and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bound of license.
→ -
In any society, order is the first need of all. Liberty and justice may be established only after order is tolerably secure. But the libertarians give primacy to an abstract liberty. Conservatives, knowing that "liberty inheres in some sensible object," are aware that true freedom can be found only within the framework of a social order, such as the constitutional order of these United States. In exalting an absolute and indefinable "liberty" at the expense of order, the libertarians imperil the very freedoms they praise.
→ -
The aim of any good constitution is to achieve in a society a high degree of political harmony, so that order and justice and freedom may be maintained.
→ -
A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty.
→
Related Authors
-
Peter Viereck Poet -
Barry Goldwater Former United States Senator -
Whittaker Chambers Writer -
Christopher Dawson Historian -
Edmund Burke Statesman -
George Santayana Philosopher -
Olavo de Carvalho Philosopher -
T. S. Eliot Playwright -
Thomas Steven Molnar Philosopher -
-
Roger Scruton Philosopher -
Orestes Brownson Writer -
Pat Buchanan Former Assistant to the President for Communications -
Leo Strauss Philosopher -
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn Columnist -
Michael Joseph Oakeshott Philosopher -
William F. Buckley, Jr. Author -
Eric Voegelin Philosopher -
M. Stanton Evans Journalist -
Alexis de Tocqueville Historian