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Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.

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
Reinterpretation
Mathematical
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Basic
Mathematics
Motivation
Progress

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.
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The motive of success is not enough.
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The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.
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Some of the finest moral intuitions come to quite humble people. The visiting of lofty ideas doesn't depend on formal schooling.
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In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows: for details are swallowed up in principles.
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An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it.
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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.
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There is no nature at an instant.
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We must produce a great age, or see the collapse of the upward striving of our race.
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The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.
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By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.
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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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Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
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Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.
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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.
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Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.
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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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Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.
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Value is coextensive with reality.
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No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality.
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