The American Spectator

Courtesy of reader Bob Keiser of Wilkes Barre, PA, in response to my column yesterday about coarseness in American culture and especially on the Left, comes this wonderful, wonderful quote from the great British statesman Edmund Burke: “Manners are of more importance than Laws. Upon them in great measure the Laws depend. The Law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, invisible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and colour to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them or they totally destroy them.”

I just thought the quote bore repeating, and I thank Mr. Keiser for sharing it.