Lucille Clifton
{mb_by_description}
{mb_by_casual_summary}
Table of Contents
Family Info
Siblings
Spouses
Children
About the Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology.
In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. He wrote the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910-1913), with his former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century’s most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.
Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Whitehead’s philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.
Whitehead’s process philosophy argues that “there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us.” For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead’s thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb.
Frequently Asked Questions
{mb_by_number_of_quotes} Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead
- 1.
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 2.
The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 3.
The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 4.
Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 5.
Philosophy is the product of wonder.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 6.
When you’re average, you’re just as close to the bottom as you are the top.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 7.
The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervor, live for it, and if need be, die for it.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 8.
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 9.
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 10.
Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 11.
Ideas won’t keep; something must be done about them.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 12.
True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 13.
An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 14.
The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 15.
Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 16.
It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 17.
No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 18.
Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 19.
Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 20.
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 21.
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 22.
Seek simplicity but distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 23.
If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 24.
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 25.
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 26.
Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 27.
Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 28.
Common sense is genius in homespun.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 29.
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 30.
Without adventure civilization is in full decay.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 31.
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 32.
Wisdom alone is true ambition’s aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame; obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 33.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 34.
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 35.
The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 36.
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 37.
It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 38.
I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That’s not me.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 39.
The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen; times come when force must be used to uphold right, justice and ideals.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 40.
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 41.
Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of life is to grasp as much as we can out of that infinitude.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 42.
Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 43.
There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays to the devil.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 44.
Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 45.
No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 46.
Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 47.
It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 48.
Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 49.
What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like and immorality is what they dislike.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 50.
Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 51.
The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought and civilized modes of appreciation can affect the issue.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 52.
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 53.
In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 54.
I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning, or destroyed it altogether.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 55.
I have always noticed that deeply and truly religious persons are fond of a joke, and I am suspicious of those who aren’t.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 56.
Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}
- 57.
Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.
Alfred North Whitehead{mb_by_description:plain}