There is a caricature of the conservative that’s become so familiar it barely needs describing: reactionary, nostalgic and allergic to progress. It conjures the image of someone who thinks nothing should ever change because nothing was ever wrong.
The thinkers below had no patience for that caricature, and neither should you. What unites them is an understanding that good things are fragile and traditions useful; that the work of building them is slow, while tearing them down is easy and likely irreversible.
The selection of quotes features Roger Scruton above all because he distils, better than anyone since Chesterton (also included), the qualities of the conservative disposition and why it’s worth embracing rather than rejecting. You’ll also find Burke (a great inspiration to Scruton) and Nick Cave – an outlier in a popular culture that rewards progressive slogans and disdains anything that sounds a bit to the right.