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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.

— Alfred North Whitehead Science and the Modern World (1925)

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More quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

In all philosophic theory there is an ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents.

Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.

Adventures of Ideas (1933)

No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of all rationality.

Science and the Modern World (1925)

The human body is an instrument for the production of art in the life of the human soul.

Adventures of Ideas (1933)

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

An Introduction to Mathematics (1911)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alfred North Whitehead (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.