Alfred North Whitehead

Thus the negative perception is the triumph of consciousness.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Error is the price we pay for progress.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Great people plant trees they'll never sit under.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Nobody has a right to speak more clearly than he thinks.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge does not keep any better than fish.

— Alfred North Whitehead

The many become one and are increased by one.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Seek simplicity but distrust it.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts. It is a way of illuminating the facts.

— Alfred North Whitehead

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

— Alfred North Whitehead

An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Every epoch has its character determined by the way its population reacts to the material events which they encounter.

— Alfred North Whitehead

No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

— Alfred North Whitehead

A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A…

— Alfred North Whitehead

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

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past…

— Alfred North Whitehead

We cannot think first and act afterward. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide…

— 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…

— Alfred North Whitehead

It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought and civilized modes of appreciation can…

— Alfred North Whitehead

I regret that it has been necessary for me in this lecture to administer a large dose of four-dimensional geometry. I do…

— Alfred North Whitehead

In England if something goes wrong--say, if one finds a skunk in the garden--he writes to the family solicitor, who proceeds to…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Art heightens the sense of humanity. It gives an elation to feeling which is supernatural...A million sunsets will not spur us on…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Whenever a text-book is written of real educational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation; it makes…

— Alfred North Whitehead

For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood,…

— Alfred North Whitehead

It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and…

— Alfred North Whitehead

“Religion carries two sorts of people in two entirely opposite directions: the mild and gentle people it carries towards mercy and justice;…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. . . . Civilisation is the maintenance of social order, by its…

— Alfred North Whitehead

“The truth is that science started its modern career by taking over ideas derived from the weakest side of the philosophies of…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The worth of men consists in their liability to persuasion. They can persuade and can be persuaded by the disclosure of alternatives,…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Intolerance is the besetting sin of moral fervour.

— Alfred North Whitehead