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Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
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
Civilizations
Civilized
Civilization
Understood
More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.
Alfred North Whitehead
How the past perishes is how the future becomes.
Alfred North Whitehead
Value is coextensive with reality.
Alfred North Whitehead
Governments are best classified by considering who are the 'somebodies' they are in fact endeavouring to satisfy.
Alfred North Whitehead
Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications.
Alfred North Whitehead
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
Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.
Alfred North Whitehead
The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.
Alfred North Whitehead
In this modern world, the celibacy of the medieval learned class has been replaced by a celibacy of the intellect which is divorced from the concrete contemplation of the complete facts.
Alfred North Whitehead
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
Alfred North Whitehead
Dogmatism is the anti-Christ of learning.
Alfred North Whitehead
No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
Alfred North Whitehead
A Unitarian is a person who believes in at most one God.
Alfred North Whitehead
The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used.
Alfred North Whitehead
The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth.
Alfred North Whitehead
Error is the price we pay for progress.
Alfred North Whitehead
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
Learning preserves the errors of the past, as well as its wisdom. For this reason, dictionaries are public dangers, although they are necessities.
Alfred North Whitehead
