Quote

In argument about moral problems, relativism is the first refuge of the scoundrel.

Roger Scruton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Roger Scruton
Age: 75 †
Born: 1944
Born: February 27
Died: 2020
Died: January 12
Aesthetician
Composer
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Politician
University Teacher
Writer
Roger Vernon Scruton
Professor Sir Roger Vernon Scruton
Refuge
Argument
Problems
Moral
Problem
Firsts
Scoundrel
First
Relativism
Scoundrels

More quotes by Roger Scruton

Image
The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy.
Roger Scruton
Image
The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.
Roger Scruton
Image
The sexual parts are not only vivid examples of the body's dominion they are also apertures whose damp emissions and ammoniac smells testify to the mysterious putrefaction of the body.
Roger Scruton
Image
Modernism in architecture went hand in hand with socialist and fascist projects to rid old Europe of its hierarchical past
Roger Scruton
Image
There are no chords in modernist architecture, only lines - lines that may come to an end, but that achieve no closure
Roger Scruton
Image
Freedom can reside only in a point of view, a way of looking upon the system of necessity.Surely this is the one freedom that we may attain to: not to be released from physical reality, but to understand reality and ourselves as part of it, and so be reconciled to what we are.
Roger Scruton
Image
In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses.
Roger Scruton
Image
Wine is not just an object of pleasure, but an object of knowledge and the pleasure depends on the knowledge.
Roger Scruton
Image
If you consider only utility, the things you build will soon be useless... nobody wants to be in it.
Roger Scruton
Image
Classical buildings endure because they are loved, admired and accepted, and enjoy an innate adaption to human needs and purposes.
Roger Scruton
Image
Kant's position is extremely subtle - so subtle, indeed, that no commentator seems to agree with any other as to what it is.
Roger Scruton
Image
The culture of a civilization is the art and literature through which it rises to consciousness of itself and defines its vision of the world.
Roger Scruton
Image
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.
Roger Scruton
Image
There is a deep human need for beauty and if you ignore that need in architecture your buildings will not last
Roger Scruton
Image
Were we to aim in every case at the kind of supreme beauty exemplified by Sta Maria della Salute, we should end with aesthetic overload. The clamorous masterpieces, jostling for attention side by side, would lose their distinctiveness, and the beauty of each of them would be at war with the beauty of the rest.
Roger Scruton
Image
When many people individually get what they want, the result may be something they collectively dislike.
Roger Scruton
Image
Private property is one of the best institutions which has ever evolved, to protect us from the bullying of others.
Roger Scruton
Image
A philosophy that begins in doubt assails what no-one believes, and invites us to nothing believable
Roger Scruton
Image
Architecture, like dress, is an exercise in good manners, and good manners involve the habit of skillful insincerity - the habit of saying good morning to those whose mornings you would rather blight, and of passing the butter to those you would rather starve.
Roger Scruton
Image
The conservative response to modernity is to embrace it, but to embrace it critically, in full consciousness that human achievements are rare and precarious, that we have no God-given right to destroy our inheritance, but must always patiently submit to the voice of order, and set an example of orderly living.
Roger Scruton