Thinking Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

14 Thinking quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

All Thinking quotes Alfred North Whitehead’s page

Alfred North Whitehead’s brief set of 14 reflections distills complex philosophy into bite‑size ideas. The collection feels like a concise lecture on how thought interlocks with experience.

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A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions.

Alfred North Whitehead

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

Alfred North Whitehead

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We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition…

Alfred North Whitehead

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There is a technique, a knack, for thinking, just as there is for doing other things. You are not wholly at the…

Alfred North Whitehead

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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

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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

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You think the world is what it looks like in fine weather at noon day; I think it is what it seems…

Alfred North Whitehead

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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

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

Alfred North Whitehead

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“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

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“It is a profoundly erroneous truism that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite…

Alfred North Whitehead

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Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are cavalry…

Alfred North Whitehead

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It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we…

Alfred North Whitehead

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We think of the number "five" as applying to appropriate groups of any entities whatsoever - to five fishes, five children, five…

Alfred North Whitehead

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More by 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 or invested…

Alfred North Whitehead

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Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.

Alfred North Whitehead

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The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit.

Alfred North Whitehead

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Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.

Alfred North Whitehead

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Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.

Alfred North Whitehead

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On the ostensible exactitude of certain branches of human knowledge, including mathematics. The exactness is a fake.

Alfred North Whitehead

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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

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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

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The many become one and are increased by one.

Alfred North Whitehead

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Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

Alfred North Whitehead

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The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth.

Alfred North Whitehead

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Common sense is genius in homespun.

Alfred North Whitehead

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Everyone is a philosopher. Not everyone is good at it.

Alfred North Whitehead

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Do not teach too many subjects and what you teach, teach thoroughly.

Alfred North Whitehead

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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

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