07/26/2026
https://kirkcenter.org/conservatism/ten-conservative-principles/
Ten Conservative Principles by Russell Kirk
1. There exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for humanity, and humanity is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.
2.Conservatives adhere to custom, convention, and continuity.
3. Conservatives believe in the principle of prescription - of things established by immemorial usage, There exist rights of which the chief sanction is their antiquity -- including rights to property.
4. Conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence, acting only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences.
5. Conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety. The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at leveling must lead, at best, to social stagnation.
6. Conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability. Humanity would grow rebellious under any utopian domination. To seek utopia is to end in disaster.
7. Conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked. Separate property from private possession, and Leviathan becomes master of all.
8. Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed.
9. The conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions. A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fells without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. Constitutional restriction, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite are instruments of freedom and order.
10. Permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.
10.
Ten Conservative Principles by Russell Kirk Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persu...
