Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.

1961

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

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In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute, the race which does not value trained intelligence is doomed.

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The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.

1601

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it.

3491

Rightness of limitation is essential for growth of reality.

Unlimited possibility and abstract creativity can procure nothing. The limitation, and the basis arising from what is already actual, are both of them necessary and interconnected.

4305

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

4462

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.

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