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Roger Scruton Biography

Sir Roger Vernon Scruton FBA FRSL (/ˈskruːtən/; born 27 February 1944) is an English philosopher and writer who specialises in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.

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Roger Scruton Quotes

Art and music shine a light of meaning on ordinary life, and through them we are able to confront the things that trouble us and to find consolation and peace in their presence.

Art, Light, Shining, Shine, Trouble

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference: beauty demands to be noticed; it speaks to us directly like the voice of an intimate friend. If there are people who are indifferent to beauty, then it is surely because they do not perceive it.

Affect, Beauty, Indifference, Inspiring, People, Voice

It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since, as Swift says, it is futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into, we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a power-directed system of thought.

Attempts, Believe, Futile, Philosophy, Political, Truth

Concerning no subject would [George Bernard] Shaw be deterred by the minor accident of total ignorance from penning a definitive opinion.

Bernard Shaw, Ignorance, Minor, Opinion, Shaw

This "knowing what to do". . . is a matter of having the right purpose, the purpose appropriate to the situation in hand. . . The one who "knows what to do" is the one on whom you can rely to make the best shot at success, whenever success is possible.

Hand, Hands, Knowing, Matter, Purpose, Success

The future of mankind, for the socialist, is simple: pull down the existing order and allow the future to emerge.

Down, Mankind, Order, Pull, Simple, Socialist

All of us need an identity which unites us with our neighbours, our countrymen, those people who are subject to the same rules and the same laws as us, those people with whom we might one day have to fight side by side to protect our inheritance, those people with whom we will suffer when attacked, those people whose destinies are in some way tied up with our own.

Fighting, Destiny, Law, Attacked, Side, Tied

Creativity is not enough. . . the skill of the true artist is to show the real in the light of the ideal and so transfigure it.

Real, Creativity, Artist, Show

The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.

Consolation, Imaginary, Imaginary Things, Things

There is a crucial distinction to be made between innovation and originality. The second, unlike the first, can never break with what preceded it: to be original, an artist must also belong to the tradition from which he departs. To put it another way, he must violate the expectations of his audience, but he must also, in countless ways, uphold and endorse them.

Artist, Expectations, Innovation, Audience, Break, Original

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

Attitude, Hands, Loyalty, Place

In literary representation, the distinction between the genuinely erotic and the licentious is a distinction not of subject-matter, but of perspective. The genuinely erotic work is one which invites the reader to re-create in imagination the first-person point of view of someone party to an erotic encounter. The pornographic work retains as a rule the third-person perspective of the voyeuristic observer.

Distinction, Imagination, Party, Perspective, Views, Work

It is not enough to be nice; you have to be good. We are attracted by nice people; but only on the assumption that their niceness is a sign of goodness.

Assumption, Attracted, Nice, Niceness, People, Sign

When truth cannot make itself known in words, it will make itself known in deeds.

Deeds, Known, Make, Truth

A philosophy that begins in doubt assails what no-one believes, and invites us to nothing believable

Assails, Believe, Doubt, Invites, Philosophy

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

Art, Becomes, Humanity, Sense, Shock, Value

To teach virtue we must educate the emotions, and this means learning "what to feel" in the various circumstances that prompt them.

Mean, Emotion, Virtue, Circumstances, Prompt, Teach

In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses.

Philosophy, Mad, Half, Recluses, Britain

Something of the child's pure delight in creation survives in every true work of art.

Art, Children, Creation, Delight, True, Work

Cognitive states of mind are seldom addictive, since they depend upon exploration of the world, and the individual encounter with the individual object, whose appeal is outside the subject's control. Addiction arises when the subject has full control over a pleasure and can ponder it at will. It is primarily a matter of sensory pleasure, and involves a kind of short-circuiting of the pleasure network. Addiction is characterized by a loss of the emotional dynamic that would otherwise govern an outward-directed, cognitively creative life.

Loss, Emotional, Addiction, Kind, Primarily, Ponder

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Roger Scruton Biography

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