Quotes by Alfred N. Whitehead

Alfred N. Whitehead

Alfred N. Whitehead

English philosopher and mathematician

Lived from: 1861 - 1947

Category: Philosophers | Scientists Country: FlagUnited Kingdom

Born: 15 february 1861 Died: 30 december 1947

  • But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
  • The real history does not get written, because it is not in people's brains but in their nerves and vitals.
  • The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
  • The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.
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Quotes 1 till 20 of 55.

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  • An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Common sense is genius in homespun.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning, or destroyed it altogether.
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  • Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
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  • Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking.
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  • Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
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  • Each human being is a more complex structure than any social system to which he belongs.
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  • Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
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  • Every thing of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
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  • Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
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  • Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren't.
    ― Alfred N. Whitehead
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  • I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That's not me.
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Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from Alfred N. Whitehead?

The two most famous quotes from Alfred N. Whitehead are:

  • "An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words."
  • "Common sense is genius in homespun."

When did Alfred N. Whitehead live?

Alfred N. Whitehead was born in 1861 and died in the year 1947.