412 Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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

Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development.

Without deductive logic science would be entirely useless. It is merely a barren game to ascend from the particular to the general, unless afterwards we can reverse the process and descend from the general to the particular, ascending and descending like angels on Jacob’s ladder.

The real history does not get written, because it is not in people’s brains but in their nerves and vitals.

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.

The way in which the persecution of Galileo has been remembered is a tribute to the quiet commencement of the most intimate change in outlook which the human race had yet encountered. Since a babe was born in a manger, it may be doubted whether so great a thing has happened with so little stir.

Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God’s earth.

There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.

Great people plant trees they’ll never sit under.