Mathematics, in its widest significance, is the development of all types of formal, necessary, deductive reasoning. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The whole of mathematics consists in the organization of a series of aids to the imagination in the process of reasoning. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express,… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
“In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as if it… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
We think of the number "five" as applying to appropriate groups of any entities whatsoever - to five fishes, five children, five… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
On the ostensible exactitude of certain branches of human knowledge, including mathematics. The exactness is a fake. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty in our present… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of infinitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Do not teach too many subjects and what you teach, teach thoroughly. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are cavalry charges in… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share
