I. Frost's Selected Quotations

Everything at Amazon by and about: Alfred North Whitehead

It requires a very unusual MIND to make an analysis of the obvious.
Whitehead, Alfred North

It is impossible to meditate on Time and the mystery of the creative process of nature without an overwhelming emotion at the limitations of HUMAN INTELLIGENCE.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Not IGNORANCE, but IGNORANCE of IGNORANCE, is the death of KNOWLEDGE.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Everything of IMPORTANCE has been said BEFRORE by someone who did not DISCOVER it.
Whitehead, Alfred North

All things in nature are equally INCREDIBLE.
Whitehead, Alfred North

INTELLECT is to EMOTION as our clothes are to our bodies; we could not very well have CIVILIZED LIFE without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Of course, whatever we can do in the way of ABSTRACTIONS is for some purposes USEFUL - provided that we know what we are about.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The greatest INVENTION of the nineteenth century was the INVENTION of the METHOD of INVENTION.
Whitehead, Alfred North

LEARNING preserves the ERRORS of the past, as well as its
WISDOM. For this reason, DICTIONARIES are PUBLIC DANGERS, although they are NECESSITIES.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Learning is often spoken of as if we were watching the open pages of all the books which we have ever read, and then, when occasion arises, we select the right page to read about to the universe.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The distinction between MAN and animal is in one sense only a difference in degree. But the extent of the degree makes all the difference. The Rubicon has been crossed.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The SCIENCE of PURE MATHEMATICS, in its modern
developments, may claim to the most original creation of the human spirit.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The study of MATHEMATICS is apt to commence in disappointment . . . We are told 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.
Whitehead, Alfred North

ALGEBRA is the INTELLECTUAL INSTRUMENT for rendering clear the QUANTITATIVE. aspect of the world.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Human Life is driven forward by its dim APPREHENSION of notions too general for its existing language.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.
Whitehead, Alfred North

There will be some FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS which adherents of all the variant systems within the epoch UNCONSCIOUSLY presuppose. Such ASSUMPTIONS appear so obvious that people do not know what they are ASSUMING because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The total absence of HUMOR from the BIBLE is one of the most singular things in all literature.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Whenever a BOOK is written of real educational worth, you may be quite certain that some reviewer will say that it will be DIFFICULT to TEACH from it. Of course it will be DIFFICULT to TEACH from it. If it were easy, the BOOK ought to be burned; for it cannot be educational. In education, as elsewhere, the broad primrose path leads to a nasty place.
Whitehead, Alfred North

great society is a society in which men of BUSINESS think greatly of their functions.
Whitehead, Alfred North

We built CATHEDRALS in our MIND first before we built them up outside.
Whitehead, Alfred North

consider CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY to be one of the great disasters of the human race...... it would be impossible to imagine anything more in-Christian than theology. CHRIST probably couldn't have understood it.
Whitehead, Alfred North
In FORMAL LOGIC, a CONTRADICTION is the signal of a defeat, but in the evolution of REAL KNOWLEDGE it marks the first step in progress towards a victory.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Cosmology ..... restrains the aberrations of the mere UNDISCIPLINED imagination.
Whitehead, Alfred North

It is the business of the FUTURE to be DANGEROUS.
Whitehead, Alfred North

EDUCATION with INERT IDEAS is not USELESS; it is, above all things, harmful.
Whitehead, Alfred North

All the world over and at all times there habe been practical men, absorbed in irreducible and stubborn facts; all the world over and at all times there have been men of PHILOSOPHIC TEMPERAMENT, who have been ABSORBED in the WEAVING of GENERAL PRINCIPLES.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Considering the brain as a HOLOGRAM, we have an answer to Alfred North Whitehead's puzzling statement: 'There is a way in which all things are in all places at the same time.' He has described the way the brain acts as a hologram of an earth which is a HOLOGRAM of larger HOLOGRAMS.
Whitehead, Alfred North

What is MORALITY in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like and IMMORALITY is what they dislike.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Yet MOTHERS can ponder many things in their hearts which their lips cannot express.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Nature does NOT come as CLEAN as you can THINK it.
Whitehead, Alfred North

. . . the theory which I am arguing against is to bifurcate NATURE into two divisions, namely into the NATURE APPREHENDED in AWARENESS and the NATURE which IS the CAUSE of AWARENESS. The nature which is the fact apprehended in awareness holds within it the greenness of the trees, the song of the birds, the warmth of the sun, the hardness of the chairs, and the feel of the velvet. The NATURE which is the cause of awareness is the conjectured system of molecules and electrons which so affects the MIND as to produce the awareness of apparent NATURE. The meeting point of these two NATURES is the mind . . .
Whitehead, Alfred North
The ORDER OF THE WORLD is no accident. There is nothing actual which could be actual without some measure of ORDER. The RELIGIOUS INSIGHT is the grasp of this truth: That the ORDER OF THE WORLD, THE DEPTH OF REALITY of the world, . . . , THE BEAUTY of the world, the zest of life, and the mastery of evil, are ALL bound together - not accidentally, but by reason of this truth; that the universe exhibits a CREATIVITY with INFINITE FREEDOM, and a realm of forms with INFINITE possibilities: but that this CREATIVITY and these forms are together impotent to achieve actuality apart from the IDEAL HARMONY which is GOD.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The absolute PACIFIST is a bad citizen; times come when FORCE must be used to uphold RIGHT, JUSTICE and IDEALS.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS of the PAST were the ADVENTURES of ADVENTURERS of the PAST. Only the ADVENTUROUS can understand the GREATNESS of the PAST.
Whitehead, Alfred North

. . . the true method of PHILOSOPHICAL CONSTRUCTION is to frame a SCHEME of IDEAS, the best one can, and unflinchingly to explore the interpretation of EXPERIENCE in terms of that scheme . . . all constructive thought, on the various topics of scientific interest, is dominated by some such SCHEME, unacknowledged, but no less influential in guiding the IMAGINATION. The importance of PHILOSOPHY lies in its sustained effort to make such SCHEMES explicit, and thereby capable of criticism and improvement.
Whitehead, Alfred North

PHILOSOPHY is either SELf-EVIDENT, or it is not PHILOSOPHY.
It is no paradox that in our most THEORETICAL moods we may be nearest to our most PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.
Whitehead, Alfred North

It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty PROFUNDITY, he is talking NONSENSE.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The possibilities of MODERN TECHNOLOGY were first in practice realized in England by the energy of a properous middle class. Accordingly, the industrial revolution started there. But the Germans explicitly realized the method by which the deeper veins in the mine of science could be reached. In their technological schools and universities progress did not have to wait for the occasional genius or the occasional lucky thought. Their feats of scholarship during the nineteenth century were the admiration of the world. This discipline of knowledge applies beyond technology to pure science, and beyond science to general scholarship. It represents the change from AMATEURISH PROFESSIONALS.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The art of progress is to preserve ORDER amid CHANGE and to preserve CHANGE amid ORDER.
Whitehead, Alfred North

SCIENTISTS who spend their life with the PURPOSE of proving that it is PURPOSELESS constitute an interesting subject of STUDY.
Whitehead, Alfred North

RELIGION will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does SCIENCE.
Whitehead, Alfred North

In considering RELIGION, we should not be OBSESSED by the idea of its NECESSARY GOODNESS. This is dangerous DELUSION. The point to notice is its TRANSCENDENT importance; and the fact of this importance is abundantly made evident by the appeal to history.
Whitehead, Alfred North

RELIGION is the VISION of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives MEANING to all that passes, and yet eludes APPREHENSION; something whose possession is the FINAL GOOD, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ULTIMATE IDEAL, and the hopeless guest.
Whitehead, Alfred North

crystal lacks RHYTHM from excess of PATTERN, while a fog is unrhythmic in that it exhibits a patternless confusion of detail.
Whitehead, Alfred North
No ROMAN lost his life because he was absorbed in the contemplation of a mathematical diagram.
Whitehead, Alfred North

SCIENCE REPUDIATES PHILOSOPHY. In other words, it has never cared to justify its TRUTH or explain its MEANING.
Whitehead, Alfred North

SCIENCE is taking on a new aspect which is neither purely physical nor purely biological. It is becoming the STUDY OF ORGANISMS. Biology is the study of the larger organisms; whereas physics is the study of the smaller organisms.
Whitehead, Alfred North

SCIENCE suggested a cosmology; and whatever suggests a cosmology suggests a RELIGION.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The aims of SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT are to see the general in the particular and the eternal in the transitory.
Whitehead, Alfred North

The aim of SCIENCE is to seek the SIMPLEST EXPLANATION 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.' You cannot have first SPACE and then things to put into it, any more than you can have first a grin and then a Cheshire cat to fit on to it.
Whitehead, Alfred North

STYLE, in its first sense, is the last acquirement of the EDUCATED MIND.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Now it cannot be too clearly understood that, in science, TECHNICAL TERMS are names ARBITRARILY assigned, like Christian names to children. There may be JUDICIOUS or INJUDICIOUS . . . . the essential principle involved was quite clearly enunciated in Wonderland to Alice by Humpty Dumpty, when he told her, apropos of his use of words, 'I pay them extra and make them mean what I like'.
Whitehead, Alfred North

We THINK in GENERALITIES, we LIVE in DETAIL.
Whitehead, Alfred North

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.