Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead

Philosopher, Mathematician

Alfred North Whitehead was a British philosopher and mathematician known for his process philosophy, particularly in his work 'Process and Reality.'

Math Science Ideas Men Adventure Art
Born
February 15, 1861
Died
December 30, 1947
Quotes
326
Rank
#129

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Alfred North Whitehead quotes (page 10 of 17)

326 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"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."

Success Cutting Math
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"People make the mistake of talking about 'natural laws.' There are no natural laws. There are only temporary habits of nature."

Mistake Talking Law
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"The merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth."

Men Boredom Useless
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"There is a technique, a knack, for thinking, just as there is for doing other things. You are not wholly at the mercy of your thoughts, any more than they are you. They are a machine you can learn to operate."

Learning Thinking Technique
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth."

Earth Rise Above
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"There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain."

Math Errors Facts
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"Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being."

Style Mind Lasts
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"A man of science doesn't discover in order to know, he wants to know in order to discover."

Men Order Want
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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."

Wisdom Future Past
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"To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought."

Ontology Logic Certainty
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"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."

Music Numbers Use
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"The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge. Skeptics and believers are alike. At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted; fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure."

Adventure Self Common Sense
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"In this modern world, the celibacy of the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the intellect which is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the complete facts."

Reality Class World
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future."

Life Past Emotion
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"To be an abstraction does not mean that an entity is nothing. It merely means that its existence is only a factor of a more concrete element of nature."

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

Character Greatness Add
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"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."

Zest Connections Uniting
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth."

Men Feelings Culture
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"The worship of God is not a rule of safety - it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable."

Adventure Safety Unattainable
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Alfred North Whitehead Philosopher, Mathematician
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"The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory."

Science Aim Particular
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