Famous Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead

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

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

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

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

Truth is the most valuable thing in the world, but it is also the most fragile.

Philosophy is a criticism of language.

The process of creation involves the interplay of freedom and necessity.

The more we know, the more we realize how much we do not know.

The greatest contribution of the humanities to the life of the mind is the exploration of the imagination.

A science that hesitates to forget its founders is lost.

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

Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.

The future is not a gift, it is an achievement.

Human life is but a series of events; the task is to give it coherence.

A great man is a product of great thoughts.

We think in generalities, but we live in details.

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

Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.

The study of history is the study of the consequences of human actions.

The effective use of the imagination is the highest aspect of human intelligence.

The life of the mind is like the life of a butterfly; it must have a rich variety of experiences.

Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art.

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