Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead OM FRSwas an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMathematician
Date of Birth15 February 1861
Alfred North Whitehead quotes about
real history people
The real history does not get written, because it is not in people's brains but in their nerves and vitals.
math errors facts
There is no more common error than to assume that, because prolonged and accurate mathematical calculations have been made, the application of the result to some fact of nature is absolutely certain.
contemplation diagrams mathematical
No Roman ever died in contemplation over a geometrical diagram.
math ordinary language
Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language.
stars attitude sunset
After you understand about the sun and the stars and the rotation of the earth, you may still miss the radiance of the sunset.
education ideas useless
Education with inert ideas is not only useless; it is above all things harmful.
change practice dumb
In every age of well-marked transition, there is the pattern of habitual dumb practice and emotion which is passing and there is oncoming a new complex of habit.
moving fate race
In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land or at sea, can move back the finger of fate. To-day we maintain ourselves. To-morrow science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated.
fate ideas mind
The importance of an individual thinker owes something to chance. For it depends upon the fate of his ideas in the minds of his successors.
men thinking society
A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their functions.
inspirational humble ideas
Some of the finest moral intuitions come to quite humble people. The visiting of lofty ideas doesn't depend on formal schooling.
real character expression
Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable.
mind way wells
An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it.
failure men faces
When success turns a man's head he faces failure