Quotes By Alfred North Whitehead

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

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.

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

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

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.

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.

Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

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

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

Common sense is genius in homespun.

Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

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.

Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious.

No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.

Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.

Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.

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.

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

Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

We think in generalities, but we live in detail.

Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them.

Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.