Quote

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

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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
Always
Mere
Background
System
Required
Upon
Backgrounds
Degenerate
Science
Complexes
Degenerates
Order
Complex
Reflected
Doe
Sufficient
Novelty
Much
Chaos
Repetition
Something
Mathematics
Entering

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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I consider Christian theology to be one of the great disasters of the human race.
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Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion. Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by our bodily experience. Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies we could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.
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Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
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No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes.
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I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable.
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As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
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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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The only justification in the use of force is to reduce the amount of force necessary to be used.
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Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God.
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It is not paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods we may be nearest to our most practical applications.
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Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being.
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That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.
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It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages.
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A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The many become one and are increased by one.
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Nobody has a right to speak more clearly than he thinks.
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The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
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It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead