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Error itself may be happy chance.

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
May
Error
Errors
Chance
Happy

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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Not a sentence or a word is independent of the circumstances under which it is uttered.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Philosophy is the product of wonder.
Alfred North Whitehead
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A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions.
Alfred North Whitehead
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No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
Alfred North Whitehead
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I always feel that I have two duties to perform with a parting guest: one, to see that he doesn't forget anything that is his the other, to see that he doesn't take anything that is mine.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Governments are best classified by considering who are the 'somebodies' they are in fact endeavouring to satisfy.
Alfred North Whitehead
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True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of learning.
Alfred North Whitehead
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There is a technique, a knack, for thinking, just as there is for doing other things. You are not wholly at the mercy of your thoughts, any more than they are you. They are a machine you can learn to operate.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God.
Alfred North Whitehead
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It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest and is its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In every age of well-marked transition, there is the pattern of habitual dumb practice and emotion which is passing and there is oncoming a new complex of habit.
Alfred North Whitehead
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We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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