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Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Roger Scruton Quotes

“The modern adolescent finds himself in a world that has been set in motion; he is beset by noise, by external pressures, and by forces that he cannot control. The pop star is displayed in the same condition, high up on electric wires, the currents of modern life zinging through him, but miraculously unharmed. He is the guarantee of safety, the living symbol that you can live like this forever. His death or decay are simply inconceivable, like the death of Elvis, or, if conceivable, understood as a sacrificial offering, a prelude to resurrection, like the death of Kurt Cobain.”

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Author:Roger Scruton
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“All rational beings laugh--and maybe only rational beings laugh. And all rational beings benefit from laughing. As a result there has emerged a peculiar human institution--that of the joke, the repeatable performance in words or gestures that is designed as an object of laughter. Now there is a great difficulty in saying exactly what laughter is. It is not just a sound--not even a sound, since it can be silent. Nor is it just a thought, like the thought of some object as incongruous. It is a response to something, which also involves a judgment of that thing. Moreover, it is not an individual peculiarity, like a nervous tic or a sneeze. Laughter is an expression of amusement, and amusement is an outwardly directly, socially pregnant state of mind. Laughter begins as a collective condition, as when children giggle together over some absurdity. And in adulthood amusements remains one of the ways in which human beings enjoy each other's company, become reconciled to their differences, and accept their common lot. Laughter helps us to overcome out isolation and fortifies us against despair. That does not mean that laughter is subjective in the sense that 'anything goes,' or that it is uncritical of its object. On the contrary, jokes are the object of fierce disputes, and many are dismissed as 'not funny,' 'in bad taste,' 'offensive,' and so on. The habit of laughing at things is not detachable from the habit of judging things to be worthy of laughter. Indeed, amusement, although a spontaneous outflow of social emotion, is also the most frequently practiced form of judgment. To laugh at something is already to judge it.”

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Book:Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged
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“Unlike every other product that is now manufactured for the table, wine exists in as many varieties as there are people who produce it. Variations in technique, climate, grape, soil and culture ensure that wine is, to the ordinary drinker, the most unpredictable of drinks, and to the connoisseur the most intricately informative, responding to its origins like a game of chess to its opening move.”

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Book:I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher's Guide to Wine
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“In place of the old beliefs of a civilization based on godliness, judgment and historical loyalty, young people are given the new beliefs of a society based on equality and inclusion, and are told that the judgment of other lifestyles is a crime. ... The "non-judgmental" attitude towards other cultures goes hand-in-hand with a fierce denunciation of the culture that might have been one's own”

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Author:Roger Scruton
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