A philosophy that begins in doubt assails what no-one believes, and invites us to nothing believable

Styles may change, details may come and go, but the broad demands of aesthetic judgement are permanent.

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.

Private property is one of the best institutions which has ever evolved, to protect us from the bullying of others.

When gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment

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.

The welfare state that is built upon this conception seems to prove precisely away from the conservative conception of authoritative and personal government, towards a labyrinthine privilege sodden structure of anonymous power, structuring a citizenship that is increasingly reluctant to answer for itself, increasingly parasitic on the dispensations of a bureaucracy towards which it can feel no gratitude.