Alfred North Whitehead Quotes About Study

Quotes about: Study

• 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.

• 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

  Success, Cutting, Math

  Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

• In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Math, Ideas, Issues

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

• Many a scientist has patiently designed experiments for the purpose of substantiating his belief that animal operations are motivated by no purposes. He has perhaps spent his spare time in writing articles to prove that human beings are as other animals so that 'purpose' is a category irrelevant for the explanation of their bodily activities, his own activities included. Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Writing, Animal, Interesting

• 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]

• Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Interesting, Purpose, Study

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Whitehead's The Function of Reason”, p.9, Agora Publications, Inc.

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