Quote

Common sense is genius in homespun.

Alfred North Whitehead

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alfred North Whitehead
Age: 86 †
Born: 1861
Born: February 15
Died: 1947
Died: December 30
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Theologian
Writer
Ramsgate
Kent
Genius
Common
Sense
Homespun

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

Image
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
Image
Religion is what a man does with his solitariness.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
A man of science doesn't discover in order to know, he wants to know in order to discover.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Seek simplicity, then distrust.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts but until this has occurred, words do not count.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
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
Image
Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
A clash of doctrine is not a disaster, it is an opportunity.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows: for details are swallowed up in principles.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
The theme of Cosmology, which is the basis of all religions, is the story of the dynamic effort of the World passing into everlasting unity, and of the static majesty of God's vision, accomplishing its purpose of completion by absorption of the World's multiplicity of effort.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Every epoch has its character determined by the way its population reacts to the material events which they encounter.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
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