Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, FBA, FRSLis an English philosopher who specialises in aesthetics. He has written over thirty books, including Art and Imagination, The Meaning of Conservatism, Sexual Desire, The Philosopher on Dover Beach, The Aesthetics of Music, Beauty, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism, Our Church, and How to Be a Conservative. Scruton has also written several novels and a number of general textbooks on philosophy and culture, and he has composed...
bottle gentle great pity proof regret regrets though
It is a great pity we had only one bottle not enough to revive that proof of the afterlife, though enough to revive some gentle regrets
lasts needs architecture
There is a deep human need for beauty and if you ignore that need in architecture your buildings will not last
lines may architecture
There are no chords in modernist architecture, only lines - lines that may come to an end, but that achieve no closure
loyalty attitude hands
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
our-world vanishing matter
Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it does not matter.
nice people assumption
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.
benefits next doe
Marriage does not exist for the benefit of the present generation but for the benefit of the next
modern-youth adults culture
The ethical life... is maintained in being by a common culture, which also upholds the togetherness of society... Unlike the modern youth culture, a common culture sanctifies the adult state, to which it offers rites of passage.
diversity people joy
States are more like people than they are like anything else: they exist by purpose, reason, suffering, and joy. And peace between states is also like peace between people. It involves the willing renunciation of purpose, in the mutual desire not to do, but to be.
space void building
Modernist buildings exclude dialogue, and the void that they create around themselves is not a public space but a desertification
wine pleasure objects
Wine is not just an object of pleasure, but an object of knowledge; and the pleasure depends on the knowledge.
risk philosopher interpretation
A philosopher who says, 'There are no truths, only interpretations,' risks the retort: 'Is that true, or only an interpretation?'
beauty voice people
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.
music song self
Music exists when rhythmic, melodic or harmonic order is deliberately created, and consciously listened to, and it is only language-using, self-conscious creatures ... who are capable of organizing sounds in this way, either when uttering them or when perceiving them. We can hear music in the song of the nightingale, but it is music that no nightingale has heard.