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From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

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
Ideas
Guide
Guides
Birth
Taking
Moment
Action
Moments
Fitfully
Thought
Immersed

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Imagination is not to be divorced from the facts. It is a way of illuminating the facts.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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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One and one make two assumes that the changes in the shift of circumstance are unimportant. But it is impossible for us to analyze this notion of unimportant change.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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
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The learned tradition is not concerned with truth, but with the learned adjustment of learned statements of antecedent learned people.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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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Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth.
Alfred North Whitehead
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...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The power of Christianity lies in its revelation in act, of that which Plato divined in theory.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be ``Seek simplicity and distrust it.''
Alfred North Whitehead
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No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.
Alfred North Whitehead