"Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light."
"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 civilizations escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite."
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Source: Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.11, Regnery Publishing
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