132 quotes
In the past human life was lived in a bullock cart; in the future it will be lived in an aeroplane; and the change of speed amounts to a difference in quality.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world — the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of a defeat; but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress towards a victory.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality.
Philosophy, in one of its functions, is the critic of cosmologies. It is its function to harmonise, refashion, and justify divergent intuitions as to the nature of things.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
The task of philosophy is to recover the totality obscured by the selection.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
One side makes process ultimate; the other side makes fact ultimate.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
We do not require elaborate training merely in order to refrain from embarking upon intricate trains of inference. Such abstinence is only too easy.
Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect (1927)
Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. Its principles may be eternal, but the expression of those principles requires continual development.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Systems, scientific and philosophic, come and go. Each method of limited understanding is at length exhausted. In its prime each system is a triumphant success: in its decay it is an obstructive nuisance.
Adventures of Ideas (1933)
If science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad hoc hypotheses, it must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Knowledge does not keep any better than fish.
The Aims of Education (1929)
The term many presupposes the term one, and the term one presupposes the term many.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Rationalism is an adventure in the clarification of thought.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
The universities are schools of education, and schools of research.
The Aims of Education (1929)