Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

About Alfred North Whitehead:

Alfred North Whitehead is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.
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Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

Alfred North Whitehead

It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.

Alfred North Whitehead

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.

Alfred North Whitehead

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.

Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.

Alfred North Whitehead

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.

Alfred North Whitehead

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

Alfred North Whitehead

The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.

Alfred North Whitehead

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.

Alfred North Whitehead

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

Alfred North Whitehead

If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.

Alfred North Whitehead

Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.

Alfred North Whitehead

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike.

Alfred North Whitehead

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

Alfred North Whitehead

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.

Alfred North Whitehead

No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.

Alfred North Whitehead

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

Alfred North Whitehead

Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Alfred North Whitehead

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.

Alfred North Whitehead

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.

Alfred North Whitehead

Seek simplicity but distrust it.

Alfred North Whitehead

Author Bio

  • NameAlfred North Whitehead
  • DescriptionEnglish mathematician and philosopher
  • BornFebruary 15, 1861
  • DiedDecember 30, 1947
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Mathematician; Physicist
  • AwardsFellow Of The Royal Society