"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 men are discharged of reverence for ancient usage, they will treat this world, almost certainly, as if it were their private property, to be consumed for their sensual gratification; and thus they will destroy in their lust for enjoyment the property of future generations, of their own contemporaries, and indeed their very own capital."
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Source: Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.44, Regnery Publishing
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