Alfred North Whitehead

Learning is often spoken of as if we are watching the open pages of all the books which we have ever read,…

— Alfred North Whitehead

“Philosophers can never hope finally to formulate these metaphysical first principles. Weakness of insight and deficiencies of language stand in the way…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Error itself may be happy chance.

— Alfred North Whitehead

The chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence.

— Alfred North Whitehead

In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows, for details are swallowed up in principles. The details for knowledge which are important,…

— Alfred North Whitehead

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

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.

— Alfred North Whitehead

“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

Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion. Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by…

— Alfred North Whitehead

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

It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the…

— Alfred North Whitehead

I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context…

— 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 preternatural solemnity of a good many of the professionally religious is to me a point against them.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Education which is not modern share the fate of all organic things which are kept too long.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Our habitual experience is a complex of failure and success in the enterprise of interpretation. If we desire a record of uninterpreted…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Philosophy asks the simple question: What is it all about?

— Alfred North Whitehead

After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of…

— Alfred North Whitehead

Learning preserves the errors of the past as well as its wisdom.

— Alfred North Whitehead

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.

— Alfred North Whitehead

Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.

— Alfred North Whitehead

We must not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our…

— Alfred North Whitehead

It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may…

— 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