412 Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

The result of teaching small parts of a large number of subjects is the passive reception of disconnected ideas, not illumed with any spark of vitality.

An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it.

The learned tradition is not concerned with truth, but with the learned adjustment of learned statements of antecedent learned people.

Above all things we must be aware of what I will call 'inert ideas' - that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.

When success turns a man's head he faces failure

It takes an extraordinary intelligence to contemplate the obvious.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

Mathematics, in its widest significance, is the development of all types of formal, necessary, deductive reasoning.

The merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth.