Quotes Archives - The Imaginative Conservative

Will the Future be very Superficial?

May 25, 2013 By W. Winston Elliott III Leave a Comment

Irving Babbitt

by Irving Babbitt

According to Mr. Lloyd George, the future will be even more exclusively taken up than is the present with the economic problem, especially with the relations between capital and labor. In that case, one is tempted to reply, the future will be very superficial. When studied with any degree of thoroughness, the economic problem will be found to run into the political problem, the political problem in turn into the philosophical problem, and the philosophical problem itself to be almost indissolubly bound up at last with the religious problem.–Democracy and Leadership [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conservatism, Irving Babbitt, Quotes May 25, 2013

Meddling with what we do not Understand

May 24, 2013 By Edmund Burke Leave a Comment

Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

What has been said of the Roman empire, is at least as true of the British constitution—“Octingentorum annorum fortuna, disciplinaque, compages haec coaluit; quae convelli sine convellentium exitio non potest. ”1 This British constitution has not been struck out at an heat by a set of presumptuous men, like the assembly of pettifoggers run mad in Paris.

’Tis not the hasty product of a day,

But the well-ripen’d fruit of wise delay.2

It is the result of the thoughts of many minds, in many ages. It is no simple, no superficial thing, nor to be estimated by superficial understandings. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conservatism, Edmund Burke, Permanent Things, Quotes May 24, 2013

On Wing to Beauty, Wisdom & Goodness: Plato

May 7, 2013 By W. Winston Elliott III Leave a Comment

by Plato

The wing is the corporeal element which is most akin to the divine,

and which by nature tends to soar aloft and carry

that which gravitates downwards into the upper region,

which is the habitation of the gods.

The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like; [Read more...]

Filed Under: Plato, Quotes May 7, 2013

Are the Great Books a Repository of Truth?

March 8, 2013 By Mortimer Adler Leave a Comment

by Mortimer Adler

It is mistakenly thought by many that the great books are recommended for reading and study because they are a repository of truth. On all the fundamental subjects and ideas with which the great books deal, some truths will be found in them, but on these very same subjects and ideas, many more errors or falsities will be found there. It is mistakenly thought by many that the great books are recommended for reading and study because they are a repository of truth. On all the fundamental subjects and ideas with which the great books deal, some truths will be found in them, but on these very same subjects and ideas, many more errors or falsities will be found there. The authors not only contradict each other; they often are guilty of contradicting themselves. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Great Books, Mortimer Adler, Quotes March 8, 2013

The Permanent Things

February 9, 2013 By Russell Kirk Leave a Comment

by Russell Kirk

T.S. Eliot

By “the Permanent Things” [T. S. Eliot] meant those elements in the human condition that give us our nature, without which we are as the beasts that perish. They work upon us all in the sense that both they and we are bound up in that continuity of belief and institution called the great mysterious incorporation of the human race.

For books by Russell Kirk and T.S. Eliot please visit The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Permanent Things, Quotes, Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot February 9, 2013

The Tendency of all Governments

January 30, 2013 By Thomas Jefferson Leave a Comment

Thomas Jefferson

by Thomas Jefferson

And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering.

Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man.

And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.– Letter to Sam Kercheval about reform of the Virginia Constitution, July 12, 1816; The Writings of Thomas Jefferson.

Books mentioned in this essay may be found in The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore.

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Filed Under: Politics, Quotes, Thomas Jefferson January 30, 2013

Russell Kirk: What is the Object of Human Life?

January 29, 2013 By Russell Kirk 5 Comments

Russell Kirk

by Winston Elliott III

In the paragraphs below, from A Program for Conservatives, Dr. Russell 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 will find their true place in our culture only when many more of us are obedient to Love.

“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. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conservatism, Quotes, Russell Kirk, Winston Elliott III January 29, 2013

Present Discontents: To Complain of the Age we Live In

January 12, 2013 By Edmund Burke Leave a Comment

by Edmund Burke present discontents

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind; indeed the necessary effects of the ignorance and levity of the vulgar. Such complaints and humours have existed in all times; yet as all times have not been alike, true political sagacity manifests itself, in distinguishing that complaint which only characterizes the general infirmity of human nature, from those which are symptoms of the particular distemperature of our own air and season.-Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents [Read more...]

Filed Under: Edmund Burke, Quotes January 12, 2013

A Quill Pen for Children at Christmas

December 19, 2012 By Stephen Masty 1 Comment

by Stephen Masty

Eric Christiansen in The Spectator had some interesting things to say in a review of The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting (and why it still matters) by Philip Hensher. Enjoy [Read more...]

Filed Under: Christmas, Education, Quotes, Stephen Masty December 19, 2012

Instinct of the Conservative

November 24, 2012 By Russell Kirk 2 Comments

by Russell Kirk

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, church, literature, good talk, good dinners, sometimes good hunting—these things please him far more than parliamentary intrigue or journalistic controversy. It is this mood of enjoyment, in part, which until recently put conservatives at a disadvantage in the United States. For this has been a land of great expectations, rather than of realized satisfactions. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conservatism, Quotes, Russell Kirk November 24, 2012

Samuel Adams on Voting

November 1, 2012 By Samuel Adams Leave a Comment

by Samuel Adams

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. –(1781)

For more on the American Founding visit The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics, Quotes, Samuel Adams November 1, 2012

Pledged to Enforce the Constitution and Restore the Republic

October 28, 2012 By W. Winston Elliott III Leave a Comment

by Barry Goldwater

Our tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few men deeply concerns me. We can be conquered by bombs or by subversion; but we can also be conquered by neglect – by ignoring the Constitution and disregarding the principles of limited government.

I am convinced that most Americans now want to reverse the trend. I think that concern for our vanishing freedoms is genuine. I think that the people’s uneasiness in the stifling omnipresence of government has turned into something approaching alarm. But bemoaning the evil will not drive it back, and accusing fingers will not shrink government. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Barry Goldwater, Politics, Quotes October 28, 2012