#toryism

A reactionary is fixed on the past and wanting to return to it; a  conservative wishes to adapt what is best in the past to the changing  circumstances of the present.

For the conservative, human beings come into this world burdened by obligations, and subject to institutions and traditions that contain within them a precious inheritance of wisdom, without which the exercise of freedom is as likely to destroy human rights and entitlements as to enhance them.

The conservative cause has been polluted by the ideology of big business, by the global ambitions of the multinational companies, and by the ascendancy of economics in the thinking of modern politicians.

- Sir Roger Scruton, How To Be a Conservative

I’ve always said that the word ‘conservative’ is the most abused word in the political dictionary. For those of us who have a conservative disposition towards arts, culture, and society but don’t automatically align ourselves with the actual political Conservative party, it is a continued cause for grief.

The only hope [for Britain] is a Toryism which... should refuse to identify itself philosophically with that ‘Conservatism’ which has been overrun first by deserters from Whiggism and later by businessmen.

In feudal times the aristocracy had sent their sons to university, conferring superiority on the institution. Nowadays it was the other way round: the university conferred superiority on the man.

- Ursula K. Le Guin

I remember graduation day well when walking down King’s Parade past King’s College Chapel on our way to Senate House.

Good times. Although I had no idea where or how fast those three years went. Probably the classic three B’s: books, booze, and bonking. And not always in that order and sometimes all three at the same time. Everything that I try to recall is a hazy dream.

Those who lose respect for their dead have ceased to be trustees of their inheritance. Inevitably, therefore, they lose the sense of obligation to future generations. The web of obligations shrinks to the present tense. Such, for Burke, was the lesson of the French Revolution.