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Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 10

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The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illumed with any spark of vitality.

The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illumed with any spark of vitality.

Alfred North Whitehead
Teaching, Ideas, Numbers
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues.

Alfred North Whitehead
Men, Enemy, Different
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.207, Simon and Schuster

The worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. They can persuade and can be persuaded by the disclosure of alternatives, the better and the worse. Civilization is the maintenance of social order, by its own inherent persuasiveness as embodying the nobler alternative. The recourse to force, however, unavoidable, is a disclosure of the failure of civilization, either in the general society or in a remnant of individuals. Thus in a live civilization there is always an element of unrest.

Alfred North Whitehead
Mean, Adventure, Men
"Adventures of Ideas".

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
Business, Danger, Fixed
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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
Strong, Jobs, Men

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
Parent, Criticism, Generations

There are two principles inherent in the very nature of things, recurring in some particular embodiments whatever field we explore - the spirit of change, and the spirit of conservation. There can be nothing real without both. Mere change without conservation is a passage from nothing to nothing. . . . Mere conservation without change cannot conserve. For after all, there is a flux of circumstance, and the freshness of being evaporates under mere repetition.

Alfred North Whitehead
Change, Real, Two
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.201, Simon and Schuster

I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning, or destroyed it altogether.

Alfred North Whitehead
Matter, Juxtaposition, Deals
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.225, David R. Godine Publisher

...the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge.

Alfred North Whitehead
Dark, Self, Age
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.5, David R. Godine Publisher

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
Mean, Adventure, Ideas
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.

Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy, Self, Excess
Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are cavalry charges in a battle - they are limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.

Alfred North Whitehead
Horse, Thinking, Civilization
An Introduction to Mathematics ch. 5 (1911)

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
Zest, Connections, Uniting
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

Whenever a text-book is written of real educational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be difficult to teach from it. Of course it will be difficult to teach from it. It it were easy, the book ought to be burned.

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

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy, Science, Secret
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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
Numbers, Poetry And Music, May
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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

Alfred North Whitehead
Character, Greatness, Add
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow be demonstrated truth.

Alfred North Whitehead
Truth, Lying, Heaven

In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.

Alfred North Whitehead
Education, Moving, Science
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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

Alfred North Whitehead
Technology, Thinking, Civilization
An Introduction to Mathematics ch. 5 (1911)

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
Stars, Disappointment, Father
"An Introduction to Mathematics" by Alfred North Whitehead, Ch. 1, 1911.

The fact of the religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience.

Alfred North Whitehead
Religious, Pain, Optimism
Science and the ModernWorld ch. 12 (1925)

A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.

Alfred North Whitehead
Science, Forget, Lost
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.108, Simon and Schuster

Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.

Alfred North Whitehead
Reality, Growth, Essentials
Alfred North Whitehead (2011). “Religion in the Making”, p.137, Cambridge University Press

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.

Alfred North Whitehead
Adventure, Science, Past
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.279, Simon and Schuster

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