Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 9

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• Our rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called on to face novel situations which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person, for the fixed duties, who, in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Past, Length Of Life, Progress

  ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1925). “SCIENCE AND THE MODERN WORLD”

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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.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Learning, Race, Brain

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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Civilization, Understood, Civilized

  Alfred North Whitehead (1966). “Adventure of ideas”

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• 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”

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• 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.

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• 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

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• 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”

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

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Vigor, Aim, Civilized Society

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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”

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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]

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• 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)

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• 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

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• 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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