Quotessence
Home / Authors / Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

Mathematician

Filter quotes by topic

AllScienceMathematicsHumansMathematicalMathIdeasDoeMenWorldFactsAdventureMayCivilizationHas BeensThinkingArtIfsPhilosophyCertainImportance

Famous Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

“The new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in 'irreducible and stubborn facts'; all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament, who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles. It is this union of passionate interest in the detailed facts with equal devotion to abstract generalisation which forms the novelty of our present society.”

MenWorldMindHas BeensFactsFormInterestPrinciplesModernEqualRelationUnionsPassionatePracticalsDevotionAll TimeAbstractStubbornTemperamentNoveltyWeavingPhilosophicVehementGeneralisation
Author:Alfred North Whitehead
Create image

“The theme of Cosmology, which is the basis of all religions, is the story of the dynamic effort of the World passing into everlasting unity, and of the static majesty of God's vision, accomplishing its purpose of completion by absorption of the World's multiplicity of effort.”

WorldStoriesPurposeEffortVisionBasesUnityPassingPassingsThemeEverlastingMajestyStaticCosmologyCompletionMultiplicityAbsorption
Book:Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology; Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28
Create image

“In the history of the world the prize has not gone to those species which specialized in methods of violence, or even in defensive armor. In fact, nature began with producing animals encased in hard shells for defense against the ill of life. But smaller animals, without external armor, warm-blooded, sensitive, alert, have cleared those monsters off the face of the earth.”

WorldHardFactsEarthFacesAnimalGoneViolenceMethodSpeciesIllWarmDefenseMonstersSensitivePrizeShellsWorld HistoryArmor
Author:Alfred North Whitehead
Create image

“For successful education there must always be a certain freshness in the knowledge dealt with. It must be either new in itself or invested with some novelty of application to the new world of new times. Knowledge does not keep any better than fish. You may be dealing with knowledge of the old species, with some old truth; but somehow it must come to the students, as it were, just drawn out of the sea and with the freshness of its immediate importance.”

WorldMayDoeCertainSuccessfulSeaStudentsImportanceSpeciesFishesApplicationNew WorldNoveltyFreshness
Author:Alfred North Whitehead
Create image

“The essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of God's agency in the world. The record is fragmentary, inconsistent, and uncertain. . . . But there can be no doubt as to what elements in the record have evoked a response from all that is best in human nature. The Mother, the Child, and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self-forgetful, with his message of peace, love, and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victory.”

MenWorldLifeHumansChildrenSelfWholeMotherSufferingPeaceChristChristianityDoubtRecordsHuman NatureVictoryDespairAuthorityElementsMessagesEssenceResponseFinalsSupremeAppealsAgencyNo DoubtRevelationsAgonyUncertainHomelessInconsistentForgetfulPeace Love
Author:Alfred North Whitehead
Create image

“The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.”

WorldArtLawScienceProgressEventsExampleParticularAccountsRelationAimPatientPermanentObservingShiftingIngenuityTransitoryInterconnection
Book:An Introduction to Mathematics
Create image

“Through and through the world is infested with quantity: To talk sense is to talk quantities. It is no use saying the nation is large. . . . How large? It is no use saying the radium is scarce. . . . How scarce? You cannot evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music, and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves.”

WorldMayUseFacesNationsNumbersMusicRhythmQuantityScarcePoetry And Music
Book:Aims of Education
Create image