Roger Scruton Quotes

What is government itself but the great reflection of human nature.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

Nanny states are interested in social order. Daddy states are interested in public order.

Rulers come and go; governments end and forms of government change; but sovereignty survives.

I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.

The people are difficult to govern: It is because those in authority are too fond of action [change].

What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make other people's decisions for them?

Religions are manipulated in order to serve those who govern society and not the other way around.

Ultimately, there is no entity called 'government'; there are only people forming themselves into groups called 'governments' and acting in a 'governmental' manner.

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

Influence is not government.

The Law is one aspect of a much more concrete and encompassing relation than the relation between commanding and obeying that characterizes the imperative.

Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

The statesman shears the sheep; the politician skins them.

In politics, as in business, leadership is crucial.

When mankind first saw the necessity of government, it is probable that many had conceived the desire of ruling.

Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires, every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political, economic, and social structure.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

At Athens, wise men propose, and fools dispose.

The bringing-about of order is the first and fundamental task of government. We accept limits on our rights for the sake of a larger social compact all the time.

Every man who repeats the dogma of Mill that one country is no fit to rule another country must admit that one class is not fit to rule another class.

A political society cannot endure without a supreme will somewhere.

The organization of order is not the exclusive monopoly of the State

Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?

A people may let a king fall and still remain a people, but if a king let his people slip from him, he is no longer a king.