132 quotes
Nothing is more impressive than the fact that as mathematics withdrew increasingly into the upper regions of ever greater extremes of abstract thought, it returned back to earth with a corresponding growth of importance for the analysis of concrete fact. ...The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.
An Introduction to Mathematics (1911)
The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
A stage of precision is barren without a previous stage of romance: unless there are facts which have already been vaguely apprehended in their broad generality, the previous analysis is an analysis of nothing. It is simply a series of meaningless statements about bare facts, produced artificially and without any further relevance.
The point is that in the past the time-span of important change was considerably longer than that of a single human life. Thus mankind was trained to adapt itself to fixed conditions.
To-day the time-span is considerably shorter than that of human life, and accordingly our training must prepare individuals to face a novelty of conditions.
Adventures of Ideas (1933)
In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can be snatched only out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
Some philosophers fail to distinguish propositions from judgments; … But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
To see what is general in what is particular and what is permanent in what is transitory is the aim of scientific thought. ...[W]e ...endeavour to imagine the world as one connected set of things which underlies all the perceptions of all people.
An Introduction to Mathematics (1911)
He has been named respectively, Jehovah, Allah, Brahma, Father in Heaven, Order of Heaven, First Cause, Supreme Being, Chance. Each name corresponds to a system of thought derived from the experiences of those who have used it.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Epochs do not rise from the dead.… [W]hereas you can make a replica of an ancient statue, there is no possible replica of an ancient state of mind. There can be no nearer approximation than that which a masquerade bears to real life. There may be understanding of the past, but there is a difference between the modern and the ancient reactions to the same stimuli.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Often things realised in thought are more vivid than than the same things in inattentive physical experience. But the things apprehended as mental are always subject to the condition that we come to a stop when we come to explore ever higher grades of complexity in their realised relationships. We always find that we have thought of just this — whatever it may be — and of no more.
Science and the Modern World (1925)
Error is the price we pay for progress.
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
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.
The Aims of Education (1929)
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Attributed Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954)
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment in recognition of the pattern.
Attributed Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954)
A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or is not known in the time when he lives.
Attributed Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954)
Buddhism is the most colossal example in the history of applied metaphysics.
Attributed
A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.
Attributed Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954)
The purpose of thinking is so our thoughts die instead of us.
Disputed
Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion.
Attributed Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954)