Whitehead Alfred North Quotes & Sayings

My criticism of Hegel procedure is that when in his discussion he arrives at a contradiction, he construes it as a crisis in the universe. — Alfred North Whitehead

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties. — Alfred North Whitehead

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery. — Alfred North Whitehead

Religion is what a person does in his solitariness. — Alfred North Whitehead

I regret that it has been necessary for me in this lecture to administer a large dose of four-dimensional geometry. I do not apologize, because I am really not responsible for the fact that nature in its most fundamental aspect is four-dimensional. Things are what they are. — Alfred North Whitehead

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression. — Alfred North Whitehead

I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't. — Alfred North Whitehead

So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the fifteenth century. — Alfred North Whitehead

A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions. — Alfred North Whitehead

I always feel that I have two duties to perform with a parting guest: one, to see that he doesn't forget anything that is his; the other, to see that he doesn't take anything that is mine. — Alfred North Whitehead

In a living civilization there is always an element of unrest, for sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilized order survives on its merits and is transformed by its power of recognizing its imperfections. — Alfred North Whitehead

It builds cathedrals before the workmen have moved a stone, and it destroys them before the elements have worn down their arches. It is the architect of the buildings of the spirit, and it is also their solvent: - and the spiritual precedes the material. — Alfred North Whitehead

We must not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our vision. — Alfred North Whitehead

If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer. — Alfred North Whitehead

Bertrand Russell had given a talk on the then new quantum mechanics, of whose wonders he was most appreciative. He spoke hard and earnestly in the New Lecture Hall. And when he was done, Professor Whitehead, who presided, thanked him for his efforts, and not least for 'leaving the vast darkness of the subject unobscured'. — J. Robert Oppenheimer

It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious. — Alfred North Whitehead

It belongs to the self-respect of intellect to pursue every tangle of thought to its final unravelment. — Alfred North Whitehead

The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used. — Alfred North Whitehead

God is the unlimited conceptual realization of the absolute wealth of potentiality. — Alfred North Whitehead

No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes. — Alfred North Whitehead

The preternatural solemnity of a good many of the professionally religious is to me a point against them. — Alfred North Whitehead

Religion is what a man does with his solitariness. — Alfred North Whitehead

The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals. — Alfred North Whitehead

Systems, scientific or philosophic, come and go. Each method of limited understanding is at length exhausted. In its prime each system is a triumphant success: in its decay it is an obstructive nuisance. — Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows. — Alfred North Whitehead

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure. — Alfred North Whitehead

The true task of education, Alfred North Whitehead cautioned, is to abjure stale knowledge. "Knowledge does not keep any better than fish," he said. We need to keep it alive, vital, potent. — Howard Zinn

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

The whole of mathematics consists in the organization of a series of aids to the imagination in the process of reasoning. — Alfred North Whitehead

The fixed person for the fixed duties who in older societies was such a godsend, in future will be a public danger. — Alfred North Whitehead

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment ... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it. — Alfred North Whitehead

It is natural to think that an abstract science cannot be of much importance in affairs of human life, because it has omitted from its consideration everything of real interest. — Alfred North Whitehead

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. — Alfred North Whitehead

A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives. — Alfred North Whitehead

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality. — Alfred North Whitehead

Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness. — Alfred North Whitehead

When you are criticizing the philosophy of an epoch, do not chiefly direct your attention to those intellectual positions which its exponents feel it necessary explicitly to defend. There will be some fundamental assumptions which adherents to all the variant systems within the epoch unconsciously presuppose. Such assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know what they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them. With these assumptions a certain limited number of types of philosophic systems are possible, and this group of systems constitutes the philosophy of the epoch. — Alfred North Whitehead

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead has advised us to "seek simplicity and distrust it. — Scott Richard Shaw

Technopoly is to say that its information immune system is inoperable. Technopoly is a form of cultural AIDS, which I here use as an acronym for Anti-Information Deficiency Syndrome. This is why it is possible to say almost anything without contradiction provided you begin your utterance with the words "A study has shown ... " or "Scientists now tell us that ... " More important, it is why in a Technopoly there can be no transcendent sense of purpose or meaning, no cultural coherence. Information is dangerous when it has no place to go, when there is no theory to which it applies, no pattern in which it fits, when there is no higher purpose that it serves. Alfred North Whitehead called such information "inert," but that metaphor is too passive. Information without regulation can be lethal. — Neil Postman

Everything of importance has already been seen by someone who did not discover it. — Alfred North Whitehead

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable. — Alfred North Whitehead

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish. — Alfred North Whitehead

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language. — Alfred North Whitehead

We must produce a great age, or see the collapse of the upward striving of our race. — Alfred North Whitehead

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention. — Alfred North Whitehead

The vigour of civilised societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth while. Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth while. Such personal gratification arises from aim beyond personality. — Alfred North Whitehead

From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery. — Alfred North Whitehead

Error itself may be happy chance. — Alfred North Whitehead

Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities. — Alfred North Whitehead

To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it. — Alfred North Whitehead

The importance of an individual thinker owes something to chance. For it depends upon the fate of his ideas in the minds of his successors. — Alfred North Whitehead

This doctrine of necessity in universality means that there is an essence to the universe which forbids relationships beyond itself, as a violation of its rationality. Speculative philosophy seeks that essence. — Alfred North Whitehead

The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning. — Alfred North Whitehead

Every really new idea looks crazy at first. — Alfred North Whitehead

Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much; Milton , I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry. — Alfred North Whitehead

It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery - Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry. — Alfred North Whitehead

Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended. — Alfred North Whitehead

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

Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas. — Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose. — Alfred North Whitehead

Seek simplicity but distrust it. — Alfred North Whitehead

Philosophy begins in wonder. And at the end when philosophic thought has done its best the wonder remains. — Alfred North Whitehead

But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. — Alfred North Whitehead

Nobody has a right to speak more clearly than he thinks. — Alfred North Whitehead

Order is not sufficient. What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition; and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system. — Alfred North Whitehead

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

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit. — Alfred North Whitehead

Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions. — Alfred North Whitehead

For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance. — Alfred North Whitehead

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. — Alfred North Whitehead

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them. — Alfred North Whitehead

Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. — Alfred North Whitehead

It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. — Alfred North Whitehead

In modern times the belief that the ultimate explanation of all things was to be found in Newtonian mechanics was an adumbration of the truth that all science, as it grows towards perfection, becomes mathematical in its ideas. — Alfred North Whitehead

A general definition of civilization: a civilized society is exhibiting the fine qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace. — Alfred North Whitehead

"One and one make two" assumes that the changes in the shift of circumstance are unimportant. But it is impossible for us to analyze this notion of unimportant change. — Alfred North Whitehead

The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge. Skeptics and believers are alike. At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted; fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure. — Alfred North Whitehead

The real history does not get written, because it is not in people's brains but in their nerves and vitals. — Alfred North Whitehead

Identification of rhythm as the casual counterpart of life; wherever there is some life, only perceptible to us when the analogies are sufficiently close. — Alfred North Whitehead

There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. — Alfred North Whitehead

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy. — Alfred North Whitehead

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe. — Alfred North Whitehead

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

PROCESS PHILOSOPHY, a school greatly influenced by Alfred North Whitehead, holds that mind and brain are manifestations of a single reality, one that is in constant flux. It thus is compatible with classical Buddhist philosophy, which views clear and penetrating awareness of change and impermanence (anicca in Pali) as the essence of insight. Thus, as Whitehead put it, "The reality is the process," and it is a process made up of vital transient "drops of experience, complex, and interdependent." This view is strikingly consistent with recent developments in quantum physics. — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. That would be claiming too much. But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming ... and a little mad. — Alfred North Whitehead

You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves. — Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge keeps no better than fish. — Alfred North Whitehead

War can protect; it cannot create. — Alfred North Whitehead

As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death. — Alfred North Whitehead

There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain. — Alfred North Whitehead

In the history of the world the prize has not gone to those species which specialized in methods of violence, or even in defensive armor. In fact, nature began with producing animals encased in hard shells for defense against the ill of life. But smaller animals, without external armor, warm-blooded, sensitive, alert, have cleared those monsters off the face of the earth. — Alfred North Whitehead

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

When success turns a man's head he faces failure — Alfred North Whitehead

The theme of Cosmology, which is the basis of all religions, is the story of the dynamic effort of the World passing into everlasting unity, and of the static majesty of God's vision, accomplishing its purpose of completion by absorption of the World's multiplicity of effort. — Alfred North Whitehead

Seek simplicity, and distrust it. — Alfred North Whitehead

Common sense is genius in homespun. — Alfred North Whitehead

Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open. — Alfred North Whitehead

Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced. — Alfred North Whitehead

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

That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience. — Alfred North Whitehead