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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.
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
Whole
Admitted
Must
Inconsistent
Great
Unstable
Ages
Degree
Degrees
Civilization
Age
Instability
More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead
The defense of morals is the battle-cry which best rallies stupidity against change.
Alfred North Whitehead
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
Alfred North Whitehead
Seek simplicity but distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead
You cannot be wise without some basis of knowledge, but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.
Alfred North Whitehead
Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought.
Alfred North Whitehead
The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty... The type of Truth required for the final stretch of Beauty is a discovery and not a recapitulation... Apart from Beauty, Truth is neither good, nor bad... Truth matters because of beauty.
Alfred North Whitehead
I put forward as a general definition of civilization, that a civilized society is exhibiting the five qualities of Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art, Peace.
Alfred North Whitehead
Our rate of progress is such that an individual human being, of ordinary length of life, will be called on to face novel situations which find no parallel in his past. The fixed person, for the fixed duties, who, in older societies was such a godsend, in the future will be a public danger.
Alfred North Whitehead
Through and through the world is infested with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large. . . . How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce. . . . How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.
Alfred North Whitehead
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
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
The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground for it is the past, and it is the future.
Alfred North Whitehead
What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike.
Alfred North Whitehead
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
Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications.
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
Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow be demonstrated truth.
Alfred North Whitehead
The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.
Alfred North Whitehead
No religion can be considered in abstraction from its followers, or even from its various types of followers.
Alfred North Whitehead
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
Alfred North Whitehead
