Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

The ancient world takes its stand upon the drama of the Universe, the modern world upon the inward drama of the Soul.

In its use of this method natural science has shown a curious mixture
of rationalism and irrationalism. Its prevalent tone of thought has been
ardently rationalistic within its own borders, and dogmatically irrational
beyond those borders. In practice such an attitude tends to become a dog-
matic denial that there are any factors in the world not fully expressible in terms of its own primary notions devoid of further generalization. Such
a denial is the self-denial of thought.

The main importance of Francis Bacon’s influence does not lie in any peculiar theory of inductive reasoning which he happened to express, but in the revolt against second-hand information of which he was a leader.

Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disjunctively, become the one actual occasion, which is the universe conjunctively. It lies in the nature of things that the many enter into complex unity.

Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended.

Nature is probably quite indifferent to the aesthetic preferences of mathematicians.

The solution which I am urging is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is LIfe in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children — Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in the midst of living it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a world, and has not yet determined how to put it together

Science only deals with half the evidence provided by human experience. It divides the seamless coat — or, to change the metaphor into a happier form, it examines the coat, which is superficial, and neglects the body which is fundamental.

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.

Modern science has imposed on humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure.

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

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.

Change’ is the description of the adventures of eternal objects in the evolving universe of actual things.

The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality.