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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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Alfred North Whitehead
Age: 86 †
Born: 1861
Born: February 15
Died: 1947
Died: December 30
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Theologian
Writer
Ramsgate
Kent
Life
Preserves
Consideration
Connection
Connections
University
Uniting
Learning
Zest
Knowledge
Imaginative
Young
Justification

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The power of Christianity lies in its revelation in act, of that which Plato divined in theory.
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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
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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.
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Nature is probably quite indifferent to the aesthetic preferences of mathematicians.
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Not a sentence or a word is independent of the circumstances under which it is uttered.
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The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact.
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From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.
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We must produce a great age, or see the collapse of the upward striving of our race.
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Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
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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.
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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.''
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What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.
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Religion is what a man does with his solitariness.
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The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish.
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No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics which tacitly it presupposes.
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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.
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Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion.
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Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.
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We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
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It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
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