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There is no nature in an instant.

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
Nature
Instant

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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Religion is what a man does with his solitariness.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought and civilized modes of appreciation can affect the issue.
Alfred North Whitehead
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We must not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our vision.
Alfred North Whitehead
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From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Now in creative thought common sense is a bad master. Its sole criterion for judgement is that the new ideas shall look like the old ones. In other words it can only work by suppressing originality.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Everyone is a philosopher. Not everyone is good at it.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Common sense is genius in homespun.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
Alfred North Whitehead
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[In many circumstances,] the most important thing about a proposition is not that it be true, but that it be interesting.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The purpose of education is not to fill a vessel but to kindle a flame.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Philosophy asks the simple question: What is it all about?
Alfred North Whitehead
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No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
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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There is a tradition of opposition between adherents of induction and of deduction. In my view it would be just as sensible for the two ends of a worm to quarrel.
Alfred North Whitehead