One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
To people like me, educated in post-war Britain, free speech has been a firm premise of the British way of life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Free speech is fundamental to the British way of life, particularly for those educated in post-war Britain.
In this quote, Roger Scruton emphasizes the value of free speech as a cornerstone of British identity, especially for individuals who have experienced the societal changes following World War II. He suggests that the ability to speak freely is not only a personal right but also a vital aspect of the democratic fabric that shapes the nation and its values.
Themes
Free SpeechBritainDemocracyIdentityPost-War
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about civil liberties, one might say, 'As Roger Scruton highlighted, free speech is integral to our identity as Britons.'
More from Roger Scruton
All quotes βThere are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Roger ScrutonRead
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
Roger ScrutonRead
For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
Similar quotes
Hollywood is difficult to navigate if you have integrity, so I opted not to work if there wasn't enough to do in a role, which doesn't have to do with the role's size.
Robin WrightRead
All people are special, and all moments are golden. There is no person and there is no time more special than another. Many people choose to believe that God communicates in special ways and only with special people. This removes the mass of the people from responsibility for hearing God's message, much less receiving it (which is another matter), and allows them to take someone else's word for everything.
Neale Donald WalschRead
What is meant by reality? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable - now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying
Virginia WoolfRead
The beautiful came to this city [Hollywood] in huge pathetic herds, to suffer, to be humiliated, to see the powerful currency of their beauty devalued like the Russian ruble or Argentine peso;to work as bellhops, as bar hostesses, as garbage collectors, as maids. The city was a cliff and they were its stampeding lemmings. At the foot of the cliff was the valley of the broken dolls.
Salman RushdieRead
But the truth is that no person ever understands another, from beginning to end of life, there is no truth that can be known, only the story we imagine to be true, the story they really believe to be true about themselves; and all of them lies.
Orson Scott CardRead
Nearly all the evils in the Church have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. They want authority, not outlook.
John RuskinRead