Alfred North Whitehead – 22 Quotes

22 Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

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

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.

– Alfred North Whitehead

It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.

– 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 shrinks as wisdom grows.

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.

– Alfred North Whitehead

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

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

– Alfred North Whitehead