Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts... Seek simplicity and distrust it. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
A man of science doesn't discover in order to know, he wants to know in order to discover. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
In modern times the belief that the ultimate explanation of all things was to be found in Newtonian mechanics was an adumbration… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Systems, scientific or philosophic, come and go. Each method of limited understanding is at length exhausted. In its prime each system is… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Mathematics as a science, commenced when first someone, probably a Greek, proved propositions about "any" things or about "some" things, without specifications… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
It is natural to think that an abstract science cannot be of much importance in affairs of human life, because it has… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The worst that happened to men of science was that Galileo suffered an honorable detention and a mild reproof, before dying peacefully… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
No man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment. . . . We are told that by its aid the stars… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The point of mathematics is that in it we have always got rid of the particular instance, and even of any particular… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Many a scientist has patiently designed experiments for the purpose of substantiating his belief that animal operations are motivated by no purposes.… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
“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 Copy Share Image
In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative from medieval theology. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general,… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Order is not sufficient. What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty; so that the massiveness… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study. — 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
Science repudiates philosophy. In other words, it has never cared to justify its truth or explain its meaning. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two different things, as the history of… — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
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 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 Image
Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
On the ostensible exactitude of certain branches of human knowledge, including mathematics. The exactness is a fake. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image
The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth. — Alfred North Whitehead Copy Share Image