The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future. Alfred North Whitehead More Quotes by Alfred North Whitehead More Quotes From Alfred North Whitehead A culture is in its finest flower before it begins to analyze itself. Alfred North Whitehead finest flower culture The English never abolish anything. They put it in cold storage. Alfred North Whitehead abolish storage cold Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much; Milton, I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry. Alfred North Whitehead too-much knowing thinking 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. Alfred North Whitehead feelings men culture We must produce a great age, or see the collapse of the upward striving of our race. Alfred North Whitehead race age success A clash of doctrines is not a disaster--it is an opportunity. Alfred North Whitehead Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended. Alfred North Whitehead Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up. Alfred North Whitehead I will not go so far as to say that to construct a history of thought without profound study of the mathematical ideas of successive epochs is like omitting Hamlet from the play which is named after him. . . But it is certainly analogous to cutting out the part of Ophelia. This simile is singularly exact. For Ophelia is quite essential to the play, she is very charming-- and a little mad. Alfred North Whitehead If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer. Alfred North Whitehead It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts. But until this has occurred, words do not count. - from Science and the Modern World Alfred North Whitehead It takes a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. Alfred North Whitehead Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up. Alfred North Whitehead There are no whole truths all truths are half- truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. Alfred North Whitehead Through and through the world is infested with quantity. To talk sense is to talk quantities, It is no use saying the nation is large- how large? It is no use s aying that radium is scarce- how scarce? You can not evade quantity. You may fly to poetry and music and quantity and number will face you in your rhythms and your octaves. Alfred North Whitehead We cannot think first and act afterward. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought. Alfred North Whitehead Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. Alfred North Whitehead happen things things-happen mind Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself. Alfred North Whitehead animals man god animal
