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Common sense is genius in homespun.

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
Homespun
Genius
Common
Sense

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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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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The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illumed with any spark of vitality.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Symbolism is no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.
Alfred North Whitehead
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What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Error itself may be happy chance.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The world is shocked, or amused, by the sight of saintly old people hindering in the name of morality the removal of obvious brutalities from a legal system.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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
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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 way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir
Alfred North Whitehead
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Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The fact of the religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Democracy...is a society in which the unbeliever feels undisturbed and at home. If there were only a half dozen unbelievers in America, their well-being would be a test of our democracy.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows: for details are swallowed up in principles.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times. For every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location. Thus every spatio-temporal standpoint mirrors the world
Alfred North Whitehead