Alfred North Whitehead Quotes - Page 13

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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

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Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much; Milton, I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry.

Alfred North Whitehead

Thinking, Knowing, Too Much

Statement on November 11, 1947. "Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead". Book by Alfred North Whitehead. Chapter 43,, 1954.

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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

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You may not divide the seamless coat of learning.

Alfred North Whitehead

Coats, May, Divides

Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.11, Simon and Schuster

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In every age of well-marked transition, there is the pattern of habitual dumb practice and emotion which is passing and there is oncoming a new complex of habit.

Alfred North Whitehead

Change, Practice, Dumb

Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Adventures of Ideas”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities.

Alfred North Whitehead

Past, Errors, Language

Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.57, Open Road Media

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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

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The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.

Alfred North Whitehead

Half, Theoretical, Consequence

Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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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

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What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

Alfred North Whitehead

Hands, Ideas, Secret

Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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Youth is life as yet unblemished by much tragedy, but hardly by TV.

Alfred North Whitehead

Tragedy, Tvs, Youth

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We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.

Alfred North Whitehead

Past, Thinking, Details

Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.20, Open Road Media

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Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications.

Alfred North Whitehead

Men, Extravagance, Safe

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

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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.

Alfred North Whitehead

Nature, Mean, Doe

Alfred North Whitehead (2015). “The Concept of Nature: Tarner Lectures”, p.109, Cambridge University Press

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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.

Alfred North Whitehead

Reality, Class, World

Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.197, Simon and Schuster

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Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge.

Alfred North Whitehead

Art, Acquisition

Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

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No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.

Alfred North Whitehead

Passion, Knowledge, Science

Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.48, Simon and Schuster

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Religion is what a man does with his solitariness.

Alfred North Whitehead

Men, Doe

1926 Religion in the Making.

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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]

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Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.

Alfred North Whitehead

Religion, Doe, Individual

Alfred North Whitehead (2011). “Religion in the Making”, p.6, Cambridge University Press

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Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.

Alfred North Whitehead

Philosophy, Effort, Romance

Alfred North Whitehead (2012). “Nature and Life”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

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Knowledge does not keep any better than fish.

Alfred North Whitehead

Doe, Fishes

1916 'The Aims of Education; a plea for reform', address as president of the Mathematical Association.

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[In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.

Alfred North Whitehead

Interesting, Important, Circumstances

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On the ostensible exactitude of certain branches of human knowledge, including mathematics. The exactness is a fake.

Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge, Fake, Branches

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Error itself may be happy chance.

Alfred North Whitehead

Errors, May, Chance

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Born: February 15, 1861
Died: December 30, 1947
Occupation: Mathematician
Cite this Page: Citation

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