Fantasy consists in a morbid fascination with unrealities, which secretly transforms itself into a desire to make them real. Imagination is a form of intellectual control, which presents us with the image of unrealities in order that we should understand and feel distanced from them. In imagination we dominate; in fantasy, we are dominated.
Roger ScrutonWhen gifts are replaced by rights, so is gratitude replaced by claims. And claims breed resentment
Roger ScrutonBeauty is assailed from two directions - by the cult of ugliness in the arts, and by the cult of utility in everyday life.
Roger ScrutonThe 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.
Roger Scruton