Quote

Seek simplicity, then distrust.

Alfred North Whitehead

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alfred North Whitehead
Age: 86 †
Born: 1861
Born: February 15
Died: 1947
Died: December 30
Mathematician
Philosopher
Physicist
Theologian
Writer
Ramsgate
Kent
Distrust
Simplicity
Seek

More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

Image
Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
I consider Christian theology to be one of the great disasters of the human race.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
The many become one and are increased by one.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground for it is the past, and it is the future.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
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.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Knowledge keeps no better than fish.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
We must not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our vision.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Every really new idea looks crazy at first.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob's ladder.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
On the ostensible exactitude of certain branches of human knowledge, including mathematics. The exactness is a fake.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.
Alfred North Whitehead
Image
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.
Alfred North Whitehead