Opportunities are enhanced not by closing things down, but…

Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter.

— Roger Scruton

“So conceived, the English police force served to emphasize a fundamental truth about the English law, which is that it exists not to control…

— Roger Scruton

My 2018 ended with a hate storm, in response to my appointment as chair of the government's Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.

— Roger Scruton

I've never been an optimist, but that's fine because pessimists have the possibility of being agreeably surprised.

— Roger Scruton

Unlike every other product that is now manufactured for the table, wine exists in as many varieties as there are people who produce it.…

— Roger Scruton

The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy.

— Roger Scruton

“I think we can all see the force of the idea that there are certain things that cannot be done to human beings –…

— Roger Scruton

When art becomes merely shock value, our sense of humanity is slowly degraded.

— Roger Scruton

“Western democracies did not create the virtue of citizenship; on the contrary, they grew from it. Nothing is more evident in The Federalist than…

— Roger Scruton

“If one looks back to the French Revolution, one sees just how easy it is for the doctrine of “human rights” to become an…

— Roger Scruton

“I say it was immediately apparent, but it was not apparent to the intellectual class, which has remained largely wedded to the post-war consensus…

— Roger Scruton

Conservatives hold on to things not only because they are attached to them, but also because they do not see the sense in radical…

— Roger Scruton

“Academic philosophers in the English speaking world still regard philosophy as Locke defined it in the 17th century, as “the handmaiden of the sciences”:…

— Roger Scruton

Delia Smith is, actually, my bete noire. I consider her a most pernicious influence.

— Roger Scruton

Modern art was born from a desire to destroy kitsch.

— Roger Scruton