“In any society, order is the first need of all. Liberty and justice may be established only after order is tolerably secure. But the libertarians give primacy to an abstract liberty. Conservatives, knowing that "liberty inheres in some sensible object," are aware that true freedom can be found only within the framework of a social order, such as the constitutional order of these United States. In exalting an absolute and indefinable "liberty" at the expense of order, the libertarians imperil the very freedoms they praise.”

Russell Kirk

Russell Kirk - “In any society, order is the first need...” 1

Similar quotes

“We’ve built a society that values civil liberties even at the expense of social order.”

Charles Wheelan
Read more

“Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain”

Marquis de Sade
Read more

“You don’t know what order with freedom means! You only know what revolt against oppression is! You don’t know that the rod, discipline, violence, the state and government can only be sustained because of you and because of your lack of socially creative powers that develop order within liberty!”

Gustav Landauer
Read more

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Gouverneur Morris
Read more

“Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.”

Theodore Roosevelt
Read more