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Alfred North Whitehead11 quotes
The deepest definition of Youth is, Life as yet untouched by tragedy. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1933A culture is in its finest flower before it begins to analyze itself. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1941What 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. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1941The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1928It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle-they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1911The religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1925All 11 quotes →