Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

Nature is probably quite indifferent to the aesthetic preferences of mathematicians.

Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.

The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit.

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. Thus religion is solitariness; and if you are never solitary, you are never religious.

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

The only use of knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present.

In a living civilization there is always an element of unrest, for sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilized order survives on its merits and is transformed by its power of recognizing its imperfections.

There are no whole truths: All truths are half-truths.

The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.

One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.

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

The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.

Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

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.

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.

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

Seek simplicity, then distrust.

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.

Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.

To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by someone who did not discover it.

I put forward as a general definition of civilization, that a civilized society is exhibiting the five qualities of Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art, Peace.

The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.

An unflinching determination to take the whole evidence into account is the only method of preservation against the fluctuating extremes of fashionable opinion.

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.

In England if something goes wrong--say, if one finds a skunk in the garden--he writes to the family solicitor, who proceeds to take the proper measures; whereas in America, you telephone the fire department. Each satisfies a characteristic need; in the English, love of order and legalistic procedure; and here in America, what you like is something vivid, and red, and swift.

Nature, even in the act of satisfying anticipation, often provides a surprise.

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.

The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.

It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.

But harmony is limitation. Thus rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality. Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing.

Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open.

In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows, for details are swallowed up in principles. The details for knowledge which are important, will be picked up ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active utilization of well-understood principles is the final possession of WISDOM.

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.

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

Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives.

After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.

Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of insignificance.

A Unitarian is a person who believes in at most one God.

The ultimate metaphysical ground is the creative advance into novelty.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived.

When success turns a man's head he faces failure

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

Fertilization of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art.

The many become one and are increased by one.