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Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.

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
Every
Ignorance
Pathetic
Revolution
Schemes
Fashioning
Intellectual
Alas
Afresh
Humanity
Protest
Proceeded
Ideas
Psychology
Inert
Ever
Educational
Stirred
Human
Passionate
Bind
Humans
Greatness
Scheme

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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One and one make two assumes that the changes in the shift of circumstance are unimportant. But it is impossible for us to analyze this notion of unimportant change.
Alfred North Whitehead
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In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.
Alfred North Whitehead
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There is no greater hindrance to the progress of thought than an attitude of irritated party-spirit.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The physical doctrine of the atom has got into a state which is strongly suggestive of the epicycles of astronomy before Copernicus .
Alfred North Whitehead
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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
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Aristotle discovered all the half-truths which were necessary to the creation of science.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The ideas of Freud were popularized by people who only imperfectly understood them, who were incapable of the great effort required to grasp them in their relationship to larger truths, and who therefore assigned to them a prominence out of all proportion to their true importance.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Thus the negative perception is the triumph of consciousness.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Art heightens the sense of humanity. It gives an elation to feeling which is supernatural...A million sunsets will not spur us on towards civilization. It requires Art to evoke into consciousness the finite perfections which lie ready for human achievement.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Seek simplicity, then distrust.
Alfred North Whitehead
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From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.
Alfred North Whitehead
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I consider Christian theology to be one of the great disasters of the human race.
Alfred North Whitehead
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The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. Thus religion is solitariness and if you are never solitary, you are never religious.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Life is complex in its expression, involving more than percipience, namely desire, emotion, will, and feeling.
Alfred North Whitehead
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Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.
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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The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.
Alfred North Whitehead
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But in the prevalent discussion of classes, there are illegitimate transitions to the notions of a 'nexus' and of a 'proposition'. The appeal to a class to perform the services of a proper entity is exactly analogous to an appeal to an imaginary terrier to kill a real rat. Process and Reality
Alfred North Whitehead
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The future belongs to those who can rise above the confines of the earth.
Alfred North Whitehead