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Why is it after a century of socialist disasters, and an intellectual legacy that has been time and again exploded, the left-wing position remains, as it were, the default position to which thinking people gravitate when called upon for a comprehensive philosophy? Why are "right-wingers" marginalised in the educational system, denounced in the media and regarded by our political class as untouchable, fit only to clean up after the orgies of luxurious nonsense indulged in by their moral superiors?

— Roger Scruton Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left (2015)

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Socialism

More quotes by Roger Scruton

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

Modern Philosophy (1995)

When truth cannot make itself known in words, it will make itself known in deeds.

The core of common culture is religion. Tribes survive and flourish because they have gods, who fuse many wills into a single will, and demand and reward the sacrifices on which social life depends.

Modern Culture (2000)

The future of mankind, for the socialist, is simple: pull down the existing order and allow the future to emerge.

A Political Philosophy (2006)

Conservatism is itself a modernism, and in this lies the secret of its success.

A Political Philosophy (2006)

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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churchill

In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated.

George Orwell

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Roger Scruton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.