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Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 9

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By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.

Alfred North Whitehead
Learning, Race, Brain
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.39, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

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
Block, Simple, Vision
Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.342, Simon and Schuster

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

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Organization, Imagination
Alfred North Whitehead (1960). “A Treatise on Universal Algebra with Applications”, p.12, CUP Archive

The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.

Alfred North Whitehead
Wisdom, Future, Past
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

The term many presupposes the term one , and the term one presupposes the term many.

Alfred North Whitehead
Term
Alfred North Whitehead, Donald W. Sherburne (1981). “A Key to Whitehead's Process and Reality”, p.33, University of Chicago Press

A race preserves its vigor so long as it harbors a real contrast between what has been and what may be; and so long as it is nerved by the vigor to adventure beyond the safeties of the past. Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

Alfred North Whitehead
Real, Adventure, Past
Alfred North Whitehead (1975). “Whitehead's American Essays in Social Philosophy”, Greenwood Publishing Group

The defense of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change.

Alfred North Whitehead
Stupidity, Battle, Defense
Alfred North Whitehead (1933). “Adventure of Ideas”

Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.

Alfred North Whitehead
Civilization, Understood, Civilized
Alfred North Whitehead (1966). “Adventure of ideas”

The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while.

Alfred North Whitehead
Vigor, Aim, Civilized Society

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
Effort, Unity, Vision
Alfred North Whitehead (1969). “Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology; Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28”, New York : Macmillan

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
Two, House Guests, Forget
Alfred North Whitehead (1954). “Dialogues of 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
Analogies, Identification, Casual
"An enquiry concerning the principles of natural knowledge". Book by Alfred North Whitehead, 1919.

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language.

Alfred North Whitehead
Math, Ordinary, Language
Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.70, Open Road Media

All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.

Alfred North Whitehead
Teacher, Details, Mastery
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.6, Simon and Schuster

It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages.

Alfred North Whitehead
Civilization, Age, Degrees
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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
Thinking, Ideas, Vacuums
Alfred North Whitehead, Lucien Price (2001). “Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead”, p.225, David R. Godine Publisher

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts... Seek simplicity and distrust it.

Alfred North Whitehead
Simplicity, Statistics, Facts
Alfred North Whitehead (2013). “The Concept of Nature”, p.163, Courier Corporation

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
Real, Character, Math

Disputing the commonsense notion that all events require the prior existence of some underlying matter or substance. There is no antecedent static cabinet.

Alfred North Whitehead
Events, Substance, Matter

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
Math, Ideas, Perfection
Alfred North Whitehead (1958). “An Introduction to Mathematics”, p.6, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958 [c1948]

Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.

Alfred North Whitehead
Life, Truth, Math
Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.250, Simon and Schuster

The ideas of Freud were popularized by people who only imperfectly understood them, who were incapable of the great effort required to grasp them in their relationship to larger truths, and who therefore assigned to them a prominence out of all proportion to their true importance.

Alfred North Whitehead
Ideas, People, Effort
Dialogues (1954) (entry for 3 June 1943)

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
Successful, Sea, Doe
"The Aims of Education". Book by Alfred North Whitehead, 1929.

But in the prevalent discussion of classes, there are illegitimate transitions to the notions of a 'nexus' and of a 'proposition'. The appeal to a class to perform the services of a proper entity is exactly analogous to an appeal to an imaginary terrier to kill a real rat. Process and Reality

Alfred North Whitehead
Real, Class, Rats
Alfred North Whitehead (2010). “Process and Reality”, p.228, Simon and Schuster

The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.

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

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