Quotessence
Home / Authors / Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllArtBeautyPeopleDesireCultureWorldHumansIfsLovePhilosophyConservatismConservativeFantasyFirstsImaginationMatterSelfWayArchitectureMay

Famous Roger Scruton Quotes

“Civil society is, indeed, composed of individuals, acting freely.... But freedom entails responsibility, founded in the sentiments of sympathy that make us strive to look on our own and others' conduct from the standpoint of the impartial judge. The institutions of law and government exist in order to assign responsibilities and to ensure that they are not evaded or abused. Of course, this is something that liberals [(i.e. classical liberal)] too will acknowledge. But the difference of emphasis is crucial to the conservative position. Conservatism is about freedom, yes. But it is also about the institutions and attitudes that shape the responsible citizen, and ensure that freedom is a benefit to us all. Conservatism is therefore also about the limits to freedom.”

GovernmentFreedomResponsibilityConservativeLiberalismCitizenshipConservatismCivil SocietyLiberal
Book:Conservatism: An Invitation to the Great Tradition
Create image

“If you ask a conservative for a statement of his political convictions, he may well say that he has none, and that the greatest heresy of modernity is precisely to see politics as a matter of convictions as though one could recuperate, at the level of political purpose, the consoling certainty which once was granted by religious faith. In another sense, however, conservatism does rest in a system of belief, and is opposed as much to the theory as to the practice of socialist and liberal politics.”

ReligionConservativeSocialismLiberalismConservativesConvictions
Book:Conservative Texts: An Anthology
Create image

“The welfare state that is built upon this conception seems to prove precisely away from the conservative conception of authoritative and personal government, towards a labyrinthine privilege sodden structure of anonymous power, structuring a citizenship that is increasingly reluctant to answer for itself, increasingly parasitic on the dispensations of a bureaucracy towards which it can feel no gratitude.”

FeelsStatesSeemsGovernmentAnswersGratitudeProveBuiltStructurePrivilegeConservativeWelfareConceptionApathyCitizenshipBureaucracyReluctantWelfare State
Author:Roger Scruton
Create image