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
adventure past greatness
The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.
character greatness add
That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.
educational ignorance greatness
Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.
may coats seamless
You may not divide the seamless coat of learning,
writing animal interesting
Many a scientist has patiently designed experiments for the purpose of substantiating his belief that animal operations are motivated by no purposes. He has perhaps spent his spare time in writing articles to prove that human beings are as other animals so that 'purpose' is a category irrelevant for the explanation of their bodily activities, his own activities included. Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.
philosophy effort romance
Philosophy is the product of wonder. The effort after the general characterization of the world around us is the romance of human thought.
passionate unions facts
It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty in our present society .
home america safety
Democracy...is a society in which the unbeliever feels undisturbed and at home. If there were only a half dozen unbelievers in America, their well-being would be a test of our democracy.
humanity quality human-nature
Human nature loses its most precious quality when it is robbed of its sense of things beyond, unexplored and yet insistent.
language spoken-language series
Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks.
independent conversation circumstances
Not a sentence or a word is independent of the circumstances under which it is uttered.
knowledge-and-power impossible emotion
It is impossible to meditate on time and the mystery of nature without an overwhelming emotion at the limitations of human intelligence.
children taken independent
We think of the number "five" as applying to appropriate groups of any entities whatsoever - to five fishes, five children, five apples, five days... We are merely thinking of those relationships between those two groups which are entirely independent of the individual essences of any of the members of either group. This is a very remarkable feat of abstraction; and it must have taken ages for the human race to rise to it
art writing self
Great art is more than a transient refreshment. It is something which adds to the permanent richness of the soul's self-attainment. It justifies itself both by its immediate enjoyment, and also by its discipline of the inmost being. Its discipline is not distinct from enjoyment but by reason of it. It transforms the soul into the permanent realization of values extending beyond its former self.