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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
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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
Mind
Mathematics
Infinitude
Life
Minds
Finitude
Infinite
Finite
Possibility
Surrounded
Circumstances
Grasp
Purpose
Possibilities
Even
Mathematical
Much
Math
More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead
How the past perishes is how the future becomes.
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Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities.
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Youth is life as yet unblemished by much tragedy, but hardly by TV.
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There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations
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The factor in human life provocative of a noble discontent is the gradual emergence of a sense of criticism, founded upon appreciation of beauty, and of intellectual distinction, and of duty.
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Thus the negative perception is the triumph of consciousness.
Alfred North Whitehead
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
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 fact.
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After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.
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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 should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
Alfred North Whitehead
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are cavalry charges in a battle - they are limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
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It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts but until this has occurred, words do not count.
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 all education the main cause of failure is staleness.
Alfred North Whitehead
Above all things we must be aware of what I will call 'inert ideas' - that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.
Alfred North Whitehead
Value is coextensive with reality.
Alfred North Whitehead
Every really new idea looks crazy at first.
Alfred North Whitehead
Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.
Alfred North Whitehead
A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.
Alfred North Whitehead
Art heightens the sense of humanity. It gives an elation to feeling which is supernatural...A million sunsets will not spur us on towards civilization. It requires Art to evoke into consciousness the finite perfections which lie ready for human achievement.
Alfred North Whitehead
