TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index W > Alfred North Whitehead Quotes > Mind

Thumbnail of Alfred North Whitehead (source)
Alfred North Whitehead
(15 Feb 1861 - 30 Dec 1947)

English mathematician and philosopher who worked in logic, physics, and later in his life spent more time on the philosophy of science and metaphysics. He worked with Bertrand Russell on Principia Mathematica which shows that logic underlies all mathematics.



By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.
— Alfred North Whitehead
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Advanced (12)  |  Brain (281)  |  Concentrate (28)  |  Concentration (29)  |  Effect (414)  |  Free (239)  |  Good (906)  |  Increase (225)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  More (2558)  |  Notation (28)  |  Power (771)  |  Problem (731)  |  Race (278)  |  Relief (30)  |  Set (400)  |  Unnecessary (23)  |  Work (1402)

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
In Science and the Modern World: Lowell Lectures, 1925 (1925), 6.
Science quotes on:  |  Analysis (244)  |  Happen (282)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Require (229)  |  Requirement (66)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Undertake (35)  |  Unusual (37)

I am sure that one secret of a successful teacher is that he has formulated quite clearly in his mind what the pupil has got to know in precise fashion. He will then cease from half-hearted attempts to worry his pupils with memorising a lot of irrelevant stuff of inferior importance.
— Alfred North Whitehead
In 'The Rhythmic Claims of Freedom and Discipline', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 46.
Science quotes on:  |  Attempt (266)  |  Cease (81)  |  Education (423)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Half-Hearted (2)  |  Heart (243)  |  Importance (299)  |  Inferior (37)  |  Know (1538)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Lot (151)  |  Memorization (2)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Precise (71)  |  Precision (72)  |  Pupil (62)  |  Secret (216)  |  Success (327)  |  Successful (134)  |  Teacher (154)  |  Will (2350)

It is rigid dogma that destroys truth; and, please notice, my emphasis is not on the dogma, but on the rigidity. When men say of any question, “This is all there is to be known or said of the subject; investigation ends here,” that is death. It may be that the mischief comes not from the thinker but for the use made of his thinking by late-comers. Aristotle, for example, gave us our scientific technique … yet his logical propositions, his instruction in sound reasoning which was bequeathed to Europe, are valid only within the limited framework of formal logic, and, as used in Europe, they stultified the minds of whole generations of mediaeval Schoolmen. Aristotle invented science, but destroyed philosophy.
— Alfred North Whitehead
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, as recorded by Lucien Price (1954, 2001), 165.
Science quotes on:  |  Aristotle (179)  |  Death (406)  |  Destroy (189)  |  Dogma (49)  |  End (603)  |  Framework (33)  |  Generation (256)  |  Instruction (101)  |  Investigation (250)  |  Known (453)  |  Late (119)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Logic (311)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mischief (13)  |  Notice (81)  |  Philosophy (409)  |  Please (68)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Question (649)  |  Reasoning (212)  |  Rigid (24)  |  Rigidity (5)  |  Say (989)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Scientific Method (200)  |  Sound (187)  |  Subject (543)  |  Technique (84)  |  Thinker (41)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thought (995)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Use (771)  |  Whole (756)

Our minds are finite, and yet even in these circumstances of finitude we are surrounded by possibilities that are infinite, and the purpose of human life is to grasp as much as we can out of the infinitude.
— Alfred North Whitehead
Dialogue 21 (28 Jun 1941). Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954, 2001) 160.
Science quotes on:  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Finite (60)  |  Human (1512)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Life (1870)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Purpose (336)

The first acquaintance which most people have with mathematics is through arithmetic. That two and two make four is usually taken as the type of a simple mathematical proposition which everyone will have heard of. … The first noticeable fact about arithmetic is that it applies to everything, to tastes and to sounds, to apples and to angels, to the ideas of the mind and to the bones of the body.
— Alfred North Whitehead
In An Introduction to Mathematics (1911), 9.
Science quotes on:  |  Acquaintance (38)  |  Angel (47)  |  Apple (46)  |  Application (257)  |  Arithmetic (144)  |  Body (557)  |  Bone (101)  |  Everything (489)  |  Fact (1257)  |  First (1302)  |  Idea (881)  |  Mathematics (1395)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Most (1728)  |  People (1031)  |  Proposition (126)  |  Simple (426)  |  Sound (187)  |  Taste (93)  |  Through (846)  |  Two (936)  |  Type (171)  |  Usually (176)  |  Will (2350)

The sense for style … is an aesthetic sense, based on admiration for the direct attainment of a foreseen end, simply and without waste. Style in art, style in literature, style in science, style in logic, style in practical execution have fundamentally the same aesthetic qualities, namely, attainment and restraint. The love of a subject in itself and for itself, where it is not the sleepy pleasure of pacing a mental quarter-deck, is the love of style as manifested in that study. Here we are brought back to the position from which we started, the utility of education. Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being. The administrator with a sense for style hates waste; the engineer with a sense for style economises his material; the artisan with a sense for style prefers good work. Style is the ultimate morality of the mind.
— Alfred North Whitehead
In 'The Aims of Education', The Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929), 23.
Science quotes on:  |  Administrator (11)  |  Admiration (61)  |  Aesthetic (48)  |  Art (680)  |  Artisan (9)  |  Attainment (48)  |  Back (395)  |  Being (1276)  |  Direct (228)  |  Economy (59)  |  Education (423)  |  End (603)  |  Engineer (136)  |  Execution (25)  |  Good (906)  |  Hate (68)  |  Last (425)  |  Literature (116)  |  Logic (311)  |  Love (328)  |  Material (366)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Morality (55)  |  Most (1728)  |  Pleasure (191)  |  Practical (225)  |  Restraint (16)  |  Sense (785)  |  Start (237)  |  Study (701)  |  Style (24)  |  Subject (543)  |  Ultimate (152)  |  Useful (260)  |  Utility (52)  |  Waste (109)  |  Whole (756)  |  Work (1402)

Whatever be the detail with which you cram your student, the chance of his meeting in after life exactly that detail is almost infinitesimal; and if he does meet it, he will probably have forgotten what you taught him about it. The really useful training yields a comprehension of a few general principles with a thorough grounding in the way they apply to a variety of concrete details. In subsequent practice the men will have forgotten your particular details; but they will remember by an unconscious common sense how to apply principles to immediate circumstances. Your learning is useless to you till you have lost your textbooks, burnt your lecture notes, and forgotten the minutiae which you learned by heart for the examination. What, in the way of detail, you continually require will stick in your memory as obvious facts like the sun and the moon; and what you casually require can be looked up in any work of reference. The function of a University is to enable you to shed details in favor of principles. When I speak of principles I am hardly even thinking of verbal formulations. A principle which has thoroughly soaked into you is rather a mental habit than a formal statement. It becomes the way the mind reacts to the appropriate stimulus in the form of illustrative circumstances. Nobody goes about with his knowledge clearly and consciously before him. Mental cultivation is nothing else than the satisfactory way in which the mind will function when it is poked up into activity.
— Alfred North Whitehead
In 'The Rhythm of Education', The Aims of Education: & Other Essays (1917), 41.
Science quotes on:  |  Activity (218)  |  Apply (170)  |  Appropriate (61)  |  Become (821)  |  Chance (244)  |  Circumstance (139)  |  Circumstances (108)  |  Common (447)  |  Common Sense (136)  |  Comprehension (69)  |  Concrete (55)  |  Cram (5)  |  Cultivation (36)  |  Detail (150)  |  Education (423)  |  Enable (122)  |  Examination (102)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Favor (69)  |  Forgotten (53)  |  Form (976)  |  Formulation (37)  |  Function (235)  |  General (521)  |  Generality (45)  |  Habit (174)  |  Heart (243)  |  Immediate (98)  |  Infinitesimal (30)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  Learning (291)  |  Lecture (111)  |  Life (1870)  |  Look (584)  |  Memory (144)  |  Mental (179)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Minutiae (7)  |  Moon (252)  |  Nobody (103)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obvious (128)  |  Practice (212)  |  Principle (530)  |  Remember (189)  |  Require (229)  |  Sense (785)  |  Speak (240)  |  Statement (148)  |  Stimulus (30)  |  Student (317)  |  Subsequent (34)  |  Sun (407)  |  Textbook (39)  |  Thinking (425)  |  Thorough (40)  |  Thoroughly (67)  |  Training (92)  |  University (130)  |  Useful (260)  |  Usefulness (92)  |  Variety (138)  |  Way (1214)  |  Whatever (234)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)  |  Yield (86)


See also:

Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.