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Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.

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
Accounts
Necessary
Creation
Half
Science
Aristotle
Truths
Discovered

More quotes by 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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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
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There is a technique, a knack, for thinking, just as there is for doing other things. You are not wholly at the mercy of your thoughts, any more than they are you. They are a machine you can learn to operate.
Alfred North Whitehead
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It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty in our present society .
Alfred North Whitehead
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Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Problems are only opportunities in disquise.
Alfred North Whitehead
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It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.
Alfred North Whitehead
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There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanation of complex facts... Seek simplicity and distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
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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Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The race that does not value trained intelligence is doomed.
Alfred North Whitehead
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We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Nature, even in the act of satisfying anticipation, often provides a surprise.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.
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 man of science wants merely to know. He acquires knowledge to appease his passion for discovery. He does not discover in order to know, he knows in order to discover.
Alfred North Whitehead