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
errors progress pay
Error is the price we pay for progress.
adventure past civilization
Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.
simplicity sides found
...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
beauty everyday world
The foundations of the world are to be found, not in the cognitive experience of conscious thought, but in the aesthetic experience of everyday life.
government facts considering
Governments are best classified by considering who are the "somebodies" they are in fact endeavoring to satisfy.
religion followers type
No religion can be considered in abstraction from its followers, or even from its various types of followers.
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.
religion doe individual
Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.
science aim particular
The aims of scientific thought are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.
truth heaven may
Heaven knows what seeming nonsense may not tomorrow be demonstrated truth.
adventure safety unattainable
The worship of God is not a rule of safety - it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable.
block simple vision
We must not expect simple answers to far-reaching questions. However far our gaze penetrates, there are always heights beyond which block our vision.
loyalty world way
In its solitariness the spirit asks, What, in the way of value, is the attainment of life? And it can find no such value till it has merged its individual claim with that of the objective universe. Religion is world-loyalty.
achievement english-mathematician periods seldom
Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.