Russell Kirk Quotes

Success tempts many to their ruin.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.

Ambition aspires to descend.

If you're planning only to make money and nothing else, you'll be broke.

Many have been ruined by their fortunes, and many have escaped ruin by the want of fortune. To obtain it the great have become little, and the little great.

Spend enough time around success and failure, and you learn a reverence for possibility.

Darkness might seem to obscure what's happening, but I find it's always pretty revelatory: it brings out the awe in us, the fear in us, the excitement of exploring the hidden or unknown. It seems to conceal, but it really shines a light on what we want, what we need, and what we'll do to get it. Especially when we think no one can see us.

What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they ... could ... invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—–money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—–the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. ... That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended—–civilizations are built up—–excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few years, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans.

Can we wonder that all has gone ill with us when our love of office survives in our very ruin?

Poor, desperate creature; he wants an audience … the people won’t turn out to hear him.

I cannot consent to the bloody consequence of so silly a contest about so silly an object, conducted in the silliest manner … from which we are likely to derive nothing but poverty, disgrace, defeat, and ruin.

What enables us to achieve our greatness contains the seeds of our destruction.

We need people who dream impossible things, who maybe fail, sometimes succeed, but in any case who have that ambition.

I lived below the poverty line when I was young and starting out as a writer. But my wife and I kept trying to do things better, as anyone with ambition does. But just because you're trying doesn't mean you're always going to succeed.

I grew up in poverty, so I thought, 'I want to be a billionaire one day. I'll go and work for Donald Trump. I'll go try to be on 'The Apprentice' and be successful.' But 15 years later, I never would imagine that he, as the president of the United States, would call me a low life.

The ambition and focus that propel you to success can also be your downfall.

Even people who despise ego and aspire to humility, who plan to be humble once they are successful, are worried that actually enacting those beliefs would sentence them to a life of obscurity or weakness or failure.

A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm - it can creep, but it cannot fly.

The acorn of ambition often grows into an oak from which men hang.

Great Ambition, unchecked by principle, or the love of Glory, is an unruly Tyrant.

I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal.

I was poor but I knew that life is beautiful. And I had no other ambition than to discover with the help of new means those deep inner ties that linked me to the very soil.

Virtue has needs of limits.

Hope has often caused the love of gain to ruin men.

Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.