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" "Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors; they are dubious of wholesale alteration. They think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine.
Russell Kirk (October 19 1918 – 29 April 1994) was an American political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and fiction author known for his influence on 20th century American conservatism. His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post-World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.
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Manfredo — Your Excellency — how can you, even you, hope...?"
"Life is a jest, and all things show it, my dear," I replied; "and if the most barbarous demagogue of the Congo treats the great of the world with hauteur, why should not such a one as I? Ah, yes: we'd best find time for an appeal to New Delhi, too, and Peiping. The might of Upper Volta must be implored, and the enlightened patriots of Bamako. Effrontery never brought greater rewards than it does in our time. Smile, Melchiora!
And Burke, could he see our century, never would concede that a consumption-society, so near to suicide, is the end for which Providence has prepared man. 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 civilization escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite.