QuoteProject
There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Roger Scruton
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects on the limitations of science in addressing existential questions.

Roger Scruton's quote highlights the philosophical inquiry into the fundamental nature of existence, questioning why there is something instead of nothing. He asserts that such profound questions transcend scientific explanation, suggesting that they belong to a realm of thought that precedes empirical science and delves into the essence of reality itself.

Themes

ExistencePhilosophyScienceQuestionsNothingness

In practice

Example use cases

In a philosophy class discussion about the nature of existence, this quote can stimulate thought.

More from Roger Scruton

One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
Roger ScrutonRead
For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
For many artists and critics, beauty is a discredited idea. It denotes the saccharine sylvan scenes and cheesy melodies that appealed to Granny.
Roger ScrutonRead

Similar quotes

It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. -Sonnet 73
William ShakespeareRead
The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
William Lyon PhelpsRead
Needless to say, the business of living interferes with the solitude so needed for any work of the imagination. Here's what Virginia Woolf said in her diary about the sticky issue: "I've shirked two parties, and another Frenchman, and buying a hat, and tea with Hilda Trevelyan, for I really can't combine all this with keeping all my imaginary people going.
Virginia WoolfRead
Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library-and a pen warmed up in hell.
Mark TwainRead
Hamilton had one of those extraordinary 18th-century minds that touched on virtually every major topic of the day.
Ron ChernowRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.