Talk:Alfred North Whitehead

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Well, there is another quote, attributed to A.N. Whitehead - it appears in Wikipedia under Infinite Monkey Theorem ,the quote being 'I will not go to infinity'. If anyone could verify this quote, it could be added to this page.

Source for expansion[edit]

alfred.north.whitehead.com/witwiz/witwiz9.htm --Tickle me 16:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sourced vs. unsourced[edit]

The first two quotes in the "sourced" section ("Unlimited possibility ..." and "There is a quality of life ...") are, in fact, unsourced. Are they supposed to be from the same book as the third quote? I'm moving them to the "unsourced" section. --75.15.115.31 15:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As it turns out, they are from the same source (Religion in the Making) but appear to have been improperly formatted. I have restored them to the Sourced section and provided links to the texts. - InvisibleSun 16:52, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced[edit]

Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote on this list please move it to Alfred North Whitehead. --Antiquary 17:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
  • Common sense is genius in homespun.
  • Dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure. The universe is vast.
  • I have suffered a great deal from writers who have quoted this or that sentence of mine either out of its context or in juxtaposition to some incongruous matter which quite distorted my meaning, or destroyed it altogether.
  • It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest and is its importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting than a false one.
  • We think in generalities, but we live in details.
  • There remains the final reflection, how shallow, puny, and imperfect are efforts to sound the depths in the nature of things. In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly. -Process and Reality - preface - copyright 1978 edition by The Free Press page XIV
  • Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.
  • The pursuit of philosophy is the one avocation denied to omniscience.
  • The process is the actuality.