No "right," however natural it may seem, can exist unqualified in society. A man may have a right to self-defense; therefore, he may have a right to … - Russell Kirk

It is characteristic of the radical that he thinks of power as a force for good — so long as the power falls into his hands. In the name of liberty, the French and Russian revolutionaries abolished the old restraints upon power; but power cannot be abolished; it always finds its way into someone's hands. That power which the revolutionaries had thought oppressive in the hands of the old regime became many times as tyrannical in the hands of the radical new masters of the state.

Most men and women are good only from habit, or out of deference to the opinions of their neighbors, the friend to tradition argues; and to deprive them of their habits, customs, and precepts, in order to benefit them in some novel way, may leave them morally and socially adrift, more harmed by their loss of ethical sanctions than helped by the fancied new benefit.

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.