“It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart.”

—  Simon Blackburn

Source: Think (1999), Chapter Five, God, p. 162

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It can seem an amazing fact that laws of nature keep on holding, that the frame of nature does not fall apart." by Simon Blackburn?
Simon Blackburn photo
Simon Blackburn29
British academic philosopher 1944

Related quotes

Laozi photo

“When the center does not hold, the circle falls apart.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

This is a paraphrase of lines in "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats.
Misattributed

W.B. Yeats photo

“Things fall apart;
the center cannot hold…”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Ezra Pound photo

“The serious artist must be as open as nature. Nature does not give all of herself in a paragraph. She is rugged and not set apart into discreet categories.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Ronald Reagan photo

“Nature it seems also produces oxides of nitrogen. As a matter of fact nature produces 97% of them.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Radio commentary (August 1975)
1970s
Context: Right now our main effort is directed toward oxides of nitrogen which comes out of automobile tail pipe and cause the photochemical reactions which color the air a muddy brown. There is no question they are a problem in areas like L. A. where we have a more or less constant temperature inversion trapping the air. But Dr. [John] McKetta lists the findings in his field as his no. 3 shock & surprise. Nature it seems also produces oxides of nitrogen. As a matter of fact nature produces 97% of them.

Buckminster Fuller photo

“Nature never “fails.” Nature complies with its own laws. Nature is the law. When Man lacks understanding of Nature’s laws and a Man-contrived structure buckles unexpectedly, it does not fail. It only demonstrates that Man did not understand Nature’s laws and behaviors. Nothing failed. Man’s knowledge or estimating was inadequate.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

In "How Little I Know", in Saturday Review (12 Nov 1966), 152. Excerpted in Buckminster Fuller and Answar Dil, Humans in Universe (1983), 31.
"The Comprehensive Man", Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure (1963), 75-76.
1960s

“It is absurd to suppose we can think of nature as a system apart from knowledge, for it is knowledge that is increasingly determining the course of nature”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Source: 1960s, Beyond Economics: Essays on Society, 1968, p. 141 as cited in John Laurent (2003) Evolutionary Economics and Human Nature. p. 175

Ronald Fisher photo

“Professor Eddington has recently remarked that 'The law that entropy always increases — the second law of thermodynamics — holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of nature'. It is not a little instructive that so similar a law [the fundamental theorem of natural selection] should hold the supreme position among the biological sciences.”

Ronald Fisher book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

On the fundamental theorem of natural selection, Ch. 2, p. 36.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) photo

“This skeptical method consists very much in vicious circles. You cannot know whether a fact be a fact till you have ascertained the laws of nature in the case, and you cannot know the laws of nature till you have ascertained facts.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) (1802–1871) Scottish publisher and writer

Source: Testimony: its Posture in the Scientific World (1859), p. 9

Woodrow Wilson photo

“It has never been natural, it has seldom been possible, in this country for learning to seek a place apart and hold aloof from affairs.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

“ Princeton for the Nation&#x27;s Service http://books.google.com/books?id=9vQtAQAAIAAJ&amp;pg=PA1326&amp;dq=%22It+has+never+been+natural%22” (21 October 1896) <br class="br">1890s <br class="br">Context: It has never been natural, it has seldom been possible, in this country for learning to seek a place apart and hold aloof from affairs. It is only when society is old, long settled to its ways, confident in habit, and without self-questioning upon any vital point of conduct, that study can affect seclusion and despise the passing interests of the day.

Related topics