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As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.

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
Mean
Scattered
Would
Literal
Sudden
Throughout
Moral
Gospels
Society
Adherence
Religion
Constituted
Death
Precepts

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.
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It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest and is its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.
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Governments are best classified by considering who are the 'somebodies' they are in fact endeavouring to satisfy.
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The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.
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Religion increasingly is tending to degenerate into a decent formula wherewith to embellish a comfortable life.
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I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.
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But in the prevalent discussion of classes, there are illegitimate transitions to the notions of a 'nexus' and of a 'proposition'. The appeal to a class to perform the services of a proper entity is exactly analogous to an appeal to an imaginary terrier to kill a real rat. Process and Reality
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Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
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The misconception which has haunted philosophic literature throughout the centuries is the notion of 'independent existence.' There is no such mode of existence every entity is to be understood in terms of the way it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.
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Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
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Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgements ... But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.
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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 a battle - they are limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
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Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
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Nature is probably quite indifferent to the aesthetic preferences of mathematicians.
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The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.
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Order is not sufficient. What is required, is something much more complex. It is order entering upon novelty so that the massiveness of order does not degenerate into mere repetition and so that the novelty is always reflected upon a background of system.
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There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality.
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The English never abolish anything. They put it in cold storage.
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If you have had your attention directed to the novelties in thought in your own lifetime, you will have observed that almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced, and almost any idea which jogs you out of your current abstractions may be better than nothing.
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Learning is often spoken of as if we are watching the open pages of all the books which we have ever read, and then, when occasion arises, we select the right page to read aloud to the universe.
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