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Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications.

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
Men
Gratification
Societies
Gratifications
Wander
Civilised
Objectives
Extravagance
Safe
Harbor
Beyond
Harbors
Personal
Provision
Certain
Vigorous

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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.
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I put forward as a general definition of civilization, that a civilized society is exhibiting the five qualities of Truth, Beauty, Adventure, Art, Peace.
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The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
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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.
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To be an abstraction does not mean that an entity is nothing. It merely means that its existence is only a factor of a more concrete element of nature.
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The difference between ancients and moderns is that the ancients asked what have we experienced, and moderns asked what can we experience.
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The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while.
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Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future.
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Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.
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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.
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