412 Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

I consider Christian theology to be one of the greatest disasters of the human race.

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

It is in literature that the concrete outlook of humanity receives its expression.

Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.

In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasonings grasp at straws for premises and float on gossamers for deductions.

Error itself may be happy chance.

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.

Error is the price we pay for progress.

The difference between ancients and moderns is that the ancients asked what have we experienced, and moderns asked what can we experience.