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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
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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
Faces
Rhythms
Cannot
Quantity
May
Mathematical
Music
Rhythm
Number
Poetry
Numbers
Octaves
Face
Evade
More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead
The ultimate metaphysical ground is the creative advance into novelty.
Alfred North Whitehead
A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost.
Alfred North Whitehead
There is no greater hindrance to the progress of thought than an attitude of irritated party-spirit.
Alfred North Whitehead
The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illumed with any spark of vitality.
Alfred North Whitehead
Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.
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
Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.
Alfred North Whitehead
Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
Alfred North Whitehead
In all education the main cause of failure is staleness.
Alfred North Whitehead
Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise
Alfred North Whitehead
No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes.
Alfred North Whitehead
Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of insignificance.
Alfred North Whitehead
Without adventure civilization is in full decay.
Alfred North Whitehead
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
Alfred North Whitehead
A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.
Alfred North Whitehead
Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.
Alfred North Whitehead
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
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
The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.
Alfred North Whitehead
People make the mistake of talking about 'natural laws.' There are no natural laws. There are only temporary habits of nature.
Alfred North Whitehead
