Roger Scruton Quotes

I won't ever got to a place that's racist, and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist.

The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

It's this upside-down world that we live in where we afford political correctness to the most intolerant group of individuals on the planet.

Over the years, my marks on paper have landed me in all sorts of courts and controversies - I have been comprehensively labelled; anti-this and anti-that, anti-social, anti-football, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-science, anti-republican, anti-American, anti-Australian - to recall just an armful of the antis.

Quite frankly, I think political correctness is the worst form of censorship. You're not allowed to speak your mind unless you're black, or unless you're a terrorist, or unless you're an Arab or a minority people. Then you can say what you like. But if you are like a lot of us you are not supposed to say certain things.

If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now.

I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive.

To single out a particular group and say we can't make a joke about them is almost a form of prejudice and it's kind of patronizing.

[Writing about America:] Persecution for opinion ... are still as common as women who have opinions.

What should we think of a Southern city or state that forbade a film of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ to be presented?

I have suffered racial prejudice, and I know how painful it is. People need to take this issue more seriously and engage in this fight against racism.

In too many ways, political correctness has been a bully.

There are consequences for just expressing generally conservative views. And if those views take on the more extreme dint, the judgment can be swift.

Regardless of who I am, racism against anyone, anywhere should be appalling to everyone, everywhere.

Censorship is a strange situation. There was times when people would burn books because they didn't like what people were doing.

The way I think liberties get eroded is not that all of a sudden you become an Orwellian state, but gradually it becomes harder for people with unpopular views to speak out without being in danger, be it from the state or just from the majority of the people who don't like them.

Hate crimes impact not just individuals but entire communities. When a family is attacked because of the color of their skin, it's not just the family that feels violated, but every resident of that neighborhood.

Freedom of speech and thought matters, especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes, thought crime becomes a reality.

Bigotry has always been the poison of America, and we oughta do everything to eradicate it with no excuses or explanations.

Do not give voice to bigotry.

At the Oscars, if you didn't vote for '12 Years a Slave,' you were a racist. You have to be very careful about what you say. I do have particular views and opinions that most of this town doesn't share, but it's not like I'm a fascist or a racist. There's nothing like that in my history.

I believe discrimination still exists in society and we must fight it in every form.

Political correctness has become a straightjacket.

I always think the true test of free speech is when someone says something you don't like.

It is easy to believe in freedom of speech for those with whom we agree.