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The motive of success is not enough.

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
Motive
Success
Enough

More quotes by 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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You think the world is what it looks like in fine weather at noon day I think it is what it seems like in the early morning when one first wakes from deep sleep.
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Philosophy is the product of wonder.
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It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.
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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.
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The main importance of Francis Bacon's influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Every organism requires an environment of friends, partly to shield it from violent changes, and partly to supply it with its wants.
Alfred North Whitehead
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...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The importance of an individual thinker owes something to chance. For it depends upon the fate of his ideas in the minds of his successors.
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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The race that does not value trained intelligence is doomed.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In modern times the belief that the ultimate explanation of all things was to be found in Newtonian mechanics was an adumbration of the truth that all science, as it grows towards perfection, becomes mathematical in its ideas.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Problems are only opportunities in disquise.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In a living civilization there is always an element of unrest, for sensitiveness to ideas means curiosity, adventure, change. Civilized order survives on its merits and is transformed by its power of recognizing its imperfections.
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I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That's not me.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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
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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
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When success turns a man's head he faces failure
Alfred North Whitehead
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An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it.
Alfred North Whitehead
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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