Facts Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete…

— Alfred North Whitehead

It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty in…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Governments are best classified by considering who are the 'somebodies' they are in fact endeavouring to satisfy.

— Alfred North Whitehead

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

— 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

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

— Alfred North Whitehead

Governments are best classified by considering who are the "somebodies" they are in fact endeavoring to satisfy.

— Alfred North Whitehead

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in…

— Alfred North Whitehead

In this modern world, the celibacy of the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the intellect which is…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as…

— Alfred North Whitehead

The fact of the religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human…

— Alfred North Whitehead

There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of…

— 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

“The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of…

— 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

Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within, the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real,…

— Alfred North Whitehead

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

In the history of the world the prize has not gone to those species which specialized in methods of violence, or even…

— Alfred North Whitehead