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About this quote

What does it mean?
Burke argues that freedom, not oppression, prevents chaos, and that religion, not atheism, counters superstition.
In plain terms
Freedom stops anarchy; religion fights superstition.
What can you take from it?
Promote liberty and religious belief to maintain order.

Where it applies

  • governing a state
  • community leadership

Putting it to work

  • craft policies that protect liberty
  • encourage religious education

Questions to consider

  • How does freedom prevent disorder?
  • Can secular ideas replace religion in combating superstition?

Another view

Assumes religion is universally effective against superstition, which may not hold for all cultures.

More from Edmund Burke

  1. The march of the human mind is slow.

    Permalink to quote #75
  2. All government - indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act - is founded on compromise and barter.

    Permalink to quote #77
  3. It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.

    Permalink to quote #74

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