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Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 11

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Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

Alfred North Whitehead
Reasoning, Premises, Straws
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.72, Simon and Schuster

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

Alfred North Whitehead
Success, Race, Age

When success turns a man's head he faces failure

Alfred North Whitehead
Failure, Men, Faces

Seek simplicity, then distrust.

Alfred North Whitehead
Simplicity, Distrust

The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully in his bed.

Alfred North Whitehead
Men, Dying, Bed
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

The race that does not value trained intelligence is doomed.

Alfred North Whitehead
Race, Intelligence, Doe

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment.

Alfred North Whitehead
Art, Adventure, Scrapbooking
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.169, David R. Godine Publisher

Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives.

Alfred North Whitehead
Extravagance, Harbour, Certain
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

There is no nature at an instant.

Alfred North Whitehead
Nature, Math, Instant
Alfred North Whitehead (2013). “The Concept of Nature”, p.61, Courier Corporation

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
Nature, Regret, Lectures
Alfred North Whitehead (1920). “The Concept of Nature: Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November, 1919”, Cambridge University Press

I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That's not me.

Alfred North Whitehead
Selfish, Acceptance, Boss

The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in 'irreducible and stubborn facts'; all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament, who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles. It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty of our present society.

Alfred North Whitehead
Men, Mind, Principles
"Science and the Modern World". Book by Alfred North Whitehead. Chapter 1: "The Origins of Modern Science", 1925.

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

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

Alfred North Whitehead
Religious, Good Man, Solemnity
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.59, David R. Godine Publisher

Algebra is the intellectual instrument which has been created for rendering clear the quantitative aspects of the world.

Alfred North Whitehead
Teaching, Math, Intellectual
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

Through and through the world is infested with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large. . . . How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce. . . . How scarce? 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
Music, Numbers, Use
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.

Alfred North Whitehead
Business, Future, Danger
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.207, Simon and Schuster

It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty in our present society .

Alfred North Whitehead
Passionate, Unions, Facts
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

"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
Change, Math, Two
Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.62, Open Road Media

The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact.

Alfred North Whitehead
Discovery, Weapons, Facts
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

If you have had your attention directed to the novelties in thought in your own lifetime, you will have observed that almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced, and almost any idea which jogs you out of your current abstractions may be better than nothing.

Alfred North Whitehead
Ideas, Attention, May

We think of the number "five" as applying to appropriate groups of any entities whatsoever - to five fishes, five children, five apples, five days... We are merely thinking of those relationships between those two groups which are entirely independent of the individual essences of any of the members of either group. This is a very remarkable feat of abstraction; and it must have taken ages for the human race to rise to it

Alfred North Whitehead
Children, Taken, Independent

Art heightens the sense of humanity. It gives an elation to feeling which is supernatural...A million sunsets will not spur us on towards civilization. It requires Art to evoke into consciousness the finite perfections which lie ready for human achievement.

Alfred North Whitehead
Art, Lying, Sunset

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
Lying, Quality, Facts
Alfred North Whitehead (2011). “Religion in the Making”, p.68, Cambridge University Press

There will be some fundamental assumptions which adherents of 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
Philosophy, Numbers, People
Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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