Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

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

Success, Wise, Gratitude

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

Technology, Important, Thinking

Philosophy begins in wonder. And, at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.
Alfred North Whitehead

Best, End, Done

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
Alfred North Whitehead

Courage, True, Reason

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

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

Knowledge, Real, Victory

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.
Alfred North Whitehead

Art, Self, Secret

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

Time, Great, History

Seek simplicity but distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead

Simplicity, Distrust, Seek

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

Trying, Whole, Treat

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.
Alfred North Whitehead

Death, Knowledge, Ignorance

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
Alfred North Whitehead

Religion, Human, Last

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Alfred North Whitehead

General, Series, Tradition

The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
Alfred North Whitehead

Life, Motto, Natural

When you're average, you're just as close to the bottom as you are the top.
Alfred North Whitehead

Top, Close, Average

Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.
Alfred North Whitehead

Before, Said, Somebody

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

Mind, Happen, Mankind

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.
Alfred North Whitehead

Humanity, Expression, Literature

Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
Alfred North Whitehead

Almost, Ideas, Aspect

An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words.
Alfred North Whitehead

Experience, Words, Cannot

Common sense is genius in homespun.
Alfred North Whitehead

Sense, Genius, Common

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.
Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge, Wisdom, Grows

Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
Alfred North Whitehead

Time, Words, Speak

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

Life, Purpose, Minds

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

Yourself, Others, Personal

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Biography

Nationality: English

Type: Mathematician

Born: February 15, 1861

Died: December 30, 1947

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Cite this Page: Citation

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