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Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 13

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From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

Alfred North Whitehead
Ideas, Action, Birth
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.187, Simon and Schuster

The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought and civilized modes of appreciation can affect the issue.

Alfred North Whitehead
Appreciation, College, Issues
Alfred North Whitehead (1968). “Modes of Thought”, p.171, Simon and Schuster

To be an abstraction does not mean that an entity is nothing. It merely means that its existence is only a factor of a more concrete element of nature.

Alfred North Whitehead
Nature, Mean, Doe
Alfred North Whitehead (2015). “The Concept of Nature: Tarner Lectures”, p.109, Cambridge University Press

In this modern world, the celibacy of the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the intellect which is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the complete facts.

Alfred North Whitehead
Reality, Class, World
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.197, Simon and Schuster

Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.

Alfred North Whitehead
Emotional, Feelings, Accessories
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge.

Alfred North Whitehead
Art, Acquisition
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.

Alfred North Whitehead
Passion, Knowledge, Science
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

Religion is what a man does with his solitariness.

Alfred North Whitehead
Men, Doe
1926 Religion in the Making.

Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.

Alfred North Whitehead
Educational, Ignorance, Greatness
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.

Alfred North Whitehead
Disappointment, Math, Molecules
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.1, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgements; ... But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.

Alfred North Whitehead
Real, Interesting, Judgement
Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.259, Simon and Schuster

Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.

Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy, Effort, Romance
Alfred North Whitehead (2012). “Nature and Life”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.

Alfred North Whitehead
Religion, Doe, Individual
Alfred North Whitehead (2011). “Religion in the Making”, p.6, Cambridge University Press

The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir

Alfred North Whitehead
Race, May, Littles
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

In England if something goes wrong--say, if one finds a skunk in the garden--he writes to the family solicitor, who proceeds to take the proper measures; whereas in America, you telephone the fire department. Each satisfies a characteristic need; in the English, love of order and legalistic procedure; and here in America, what you like is something vivid, and red, and swift.

Alfred North Whitehead
Writing, Garden, Order
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.164, David R. Godine Publisher

The physical doctrine of the atom has got into a state which is strongly suggestive of the epicycles of astronomy before Copernicus .

Alfred North Whitehead
Atoms, Doctrine, Copernicus
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.131, Simon and Schuster

Knowledge does not keep any better than fish.

Alfred North Whitehead
Doe, Fishes
1916 'The Aims of Education; a plea for reform', address as president of the Mathematical Association.

Now in creative thought common sense is a bad master. Its sole criterion for judgement is that the new ideas shall look like the old ones. In other words it can only work by suppressing originality.

Alfred North Whitehead
Creativity, Ideas, Common Sense
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.116, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

Mathematics, in its widest significance, is the development of all types of formal, necessary, deductive reasoning.

Alfred North Whitehead
Development, Mathematics, Formal

On the ostensible exactitude of certain branches of human knowledge, including mathematics. The exactness is a fake.

Alfred North Whitehead
Knowledge, Fake, Branches

A Unitarian is a person who believes in at most one God.

Alfred North Whitehead
Believe, Unitarian, Persons

Error itself may be happy chance.

Alfred North Whitehead
Errors, May, Chance

Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology.

Alfred North Whitehead
Development, Derivatives, Medieval
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth.

Alfred North Whitehead
Men, Feelings, Culture
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.1, Simon and Schuster

[In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.

Alfred North Whitehead
Interesting, Important, Circumstances

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