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The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Alfred North Whitehead
Age: 86 †
Born: 1861
Born: February 15
Died: 1947
Died: December 30
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Theologian
Writer
Ramsgate
Kent
Knowledge
Plato
Consists
European
Philosophical
Series
Tradition
Characterization
General
Footnotes
Europe
Safest
More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead
So far as the mere imparting of information is concerned, no university has had any justification for existence since the popularization of printing in the fifteenth century.
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, will be picked up ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active utilization of well-understood principles is the final possession of WISDOM.
Alfred North Whitehead
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
Alfred North Whitehead
The ultimate metaphysical ground is the creative advance into novelty.
Alfred North Whitehead
Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks.
Alfred North Whitehead
The defense of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change.
Alfred North Whitehead
Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives.
Alfred North Whitehead
The term many presupposes the term one , and the term one presupposes the term many.
Alfred North Whitehead
It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead
With the sense of sight, the idea communicates the emotion, whereas, with sound, the emotion communicates the idea, which is more direct and therefore more powerful.
Alfred North Whitehead
Identification of rhythm as the casual counterpart of life wherever there is some life, only perceptible to us when the analogies are sufficiently close.
Alfred North Whitehead
If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
Alfred North Whitehead
The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operations of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish. It is in a way the most civilised of all the cardinals, and its use is only forced on us by the needs of cultivated modes of thought.
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 nonsense.
Alfred North Whitehead
War can protect it cannot create.
Alfred North Whitehead
[In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.
Alfred North Whitehead
The English never abolish anything. They put it in cold storage.
Alfred North Whitehead
Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.
Alfred North Whitehead
One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.
Alfred North Whitehead
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
Alfred North Whitehead
