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Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.

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
Like
Unless
Angels
Descend
Game
Entirely
Descending
Particular
Useless
Jacob
Games
Accounts
Ladder
Process
Logic
Ladders
Science
Angel
Barren
Deductive
Without
Merely
Afterwards
Ascend
Would
General
Reverse
Ascending

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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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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Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much Milton, I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry.
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A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.
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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.
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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.
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No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
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In all education the main cause of failure is staleness.
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The difference between ancients and moderns is that the ancients asked what have we experienced, and moderns asked what can we experience.
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The ideas of Freud were popularized by people who only imperfectly understood them, who were incapable of the great effort required to grasp them in their relationship to larger truths, and who therefore assigned to them a prominence out of all proportion to their true importance.
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Religion increasingly is tending to degenerate into a decent formula wherewith to embellish a comfortable life.
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If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
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Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.
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Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.
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Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience.
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It belongs to the self-respect of intellect to pursue every tangle of thought to its final unravelment.
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The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.
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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.
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I always feel that I have two duties to perform with a parting guest: one, to see that he doesn't forget anything that is his the other, to see that he doesn't take anything that is mine.
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Whenever a text-book is written of real educational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be difficult to teach from it. Of course it will be difficult to teach from it. It it were easy, the book ought to be burned.
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It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead