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Seek simplicity, then distrust.

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
Simplicity
Seek
Distrust

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.
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No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
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People make the mistake of talking about 'natural laws.' There are no natural laws. There are only temporary habits of nature.
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The teleology of the Universe is directed to the production of Beauty... The type of Truth required for the final stretch of Beauty is a discovery and not a recapitulation... Apart from Beauty, Truth is neither good, nor bad... Truth matters because of beauty.
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Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parent. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open.
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No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
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After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.
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No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
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Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived.
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In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows: for details are swallowed up in principles.
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The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.
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To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.
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All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
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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.
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The real history does not get written, because it is not in people's brains but in their nerves and vitals.
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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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There is no nature at an instant.
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
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...the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge.
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