Quote

The true method of discovery is like the flight of an aeroplane. It starts from the ground of particular observation it makes a flight in the thin air of imaginative generalization and it again lands for renewed observation rendered acute by rational interpretation.

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
Air
Interpretation
Generalization
Particular
Observation
Aeroplanes
Land
Starts
Renewed
Science
Flight
Rendered
Makes
Rational
Lands
True
Discovery
Imaginative
Like
Method
Airplane
Aeroplane
Ground
Thin
Acute

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.
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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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The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.
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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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Disputing the commonsense notion that all events require the prior existence of some underlying matter or substance. There is no antecedent static cabinet.
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In all education the main cause of failure is staleness.
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Value is coextensive with reality.
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The pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit.
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From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.
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Routine is the god of every social system it is the seventh heaven of business, the essential component in the success of every factory, the ideal of every statesman. The social machine should run like clockwork.
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Error is the price we pay for progress.
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We must not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our vision.
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You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge, but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.
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The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
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Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
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Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.
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The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
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There is no nature at an instant.
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The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty... The type of Truth required for the final stretch of Beauty is a discovery and not a recapitulation... Apart from Beauty, Truth is neither good, nor bad... Truth matters because of beauty.
Alfred North Whitehead
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There is no greater hindrance to the progress of thought than an attitude of irritated party-spirit.
Alfred North Whitehead