"Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light."
"I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful. I despised sophisters and calculators; I was groping for faith, honor, and prescriptive loyalties. I would have given any number of neo-classical pediments for one poor battered gargoyle."
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Source: Russell Kirk (2014). “The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays”, p.213, Open Road Media
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