"'The truth about the world about us.' 'Truth' is a word used in many different ways - 'You’re not telling the truth.' 'The truth about conditions in Russia.' 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' I want to use it here in the sense of what lies behind and outward show. I.et me hasten to explain by giving an example. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. That is what we see; that is the ‘outward show'. In the past the outward show was regarded as the truth. But then a scientist came along to question it and then to announce that the truth was quite different from the appearance: the truth was that the earth revolved and the sun remained still -the outward show was telling a lie. The curious thing about scientific truths like this is that they often seem so useless. It makes no difference to the average man whether the sun moves or the earth moves. He still has to rise at dawn and stop work at dusk. But because a thing is useless it does not mean that it is valueless. Scientists still think it worthwhile to pursue truth. They do not expect that laws of gravitation and relativity are going to make much difference to everyday life, but they think it is a valuable activity to ask their eternal questions about the universe. And so we say that truth - the thing they are looking for—is a value."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Novelists from EnglandLiterary criticsPlaywrights from EnglandComposers from EnglandAutobiographers from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Burgess
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess (25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) was an English writer and composer whose novels include the Malayan trilogy, A Clockwork Orange, the Enderby cycle, Nothing Like The Sun, Earthly Powers and The Kingdom Of The Wicked. He also produced critical works on Joyce, Lawrence, Hemingway and Shakespeare, and studies of language and of pornography.
308 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Anthony Burgess →
Related Quotes
"...a victim of bad medicine, bad air, bad food, farcical education, a despicable popular culture."
"Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist."
"'Everything off. I want to see you in your horrific potbellied hairy filthy nakedness.'"
"'You drink wine, you have foreskins. These things have been observed.'"
"The West is eveningland, the East morningland."
"…my two chronic diseases of gluttony and satyriasis…"
"The scientific approach to life is not necessarily appropriate to states of visceral anguish."
"'How can slaves be sent by Allah? You all have hairless faces, the mark of the bondman.'"
"'We're in control, and we have what we want!'"
"‘This damnable sex, boys - ah, you do well to writhe in your beds at the very mention of the word. All the evil of ou…"