Roger Scruton Quotes

My instincts are conservative, but my inclinations are also libertarian.

What brought Conservatism into existence was the French Revolution.

Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny. It's the only one. It's based on thousands of years of human experience. There is nothing narrow about the conservative philosophy. It's a liberating philosophy. It is a magnificent philosophy. It is a philosophy for the ages, for all times.

Conservatism is itself a modernism, and in this lies the secret of its success.

What does it mean to be a conservative? I don't even know anymore. I know what it means to me. It means to me, personal responsibility. That if I've done something wrong, its up to me to pay the price. It's up to me to make it right.

One of the most important things liberals don't understand about conservatism, obscured by too much lazy talk about conservatism's various 'wings,' is that its tenets form a relatively organic base for its adherents, where 'traditional morality' serves the interests of laissez-faire economics and vice-versa.

Myself, I'm a post-ideological conservative.

Conservatism is about the basic rights of individuals. God created us. As far as the government goes, the Founding Fathers based the Constitution off of Christian values. It goes hand-in-hand. As far as the Republican Party? I felt connected to it because individual freedom should not be legislated by the federal government.

Neoconservatism is a blend of realism and idealism. We have the idealism of the liberals but we look at the reality of the world.

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence; Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.

Of course, it is the case that conservatism as I envisage it distances itself always from abstract conceptions and tries to find the concrete reality.

As an ideology - and certainly as a political identity - conservatism is less popular than the very principles and values it stands for.

We should not just talk about conservative principles, but we should actually advance them.

I think there are plenty of Libertarians that are socially conservative.

Liberalism isn't change. It has to be imposed.

I call myself a constitutional conservative.

We don't need a new idea; the idea is called America, and it still works.

The idea of self-reliance is important to me, and that is echoed, in my way of thinking, by a conservative approach to politics.

Conservatism and respectability have their values, certainly; but has not the unconventional its values also?

For Conservatives, all disputes over law, liberty and justice are addressed to a historic and existing community. The root of politics, they believe, is attachment - the motive in human beings that binds them to the place, the customs, the history and the people who are theirs.

I'm trying to uphold what was true about conservatism. I consider myself a Reagan conservative.

At its core, conservatism is not an anti-government movement, and it's not a no-government movement.

I'm not a moderniser. I accept that things like escalators do need an upgrade every now and then, but I think the fundamental principles of Conservatism have a long thread running through them that does not need to be modernised.

I think that a good portion of the 'Institutional Left' hates the building blocks of America.

It's often been said that conservatism is successful because it chimes with these basic human instincts. It's time for us to ask fundamental questions about what the Conservative Party is for, and what it actually believes.