“Sensitiveness without impulse spells decadence, and impulse without sensitiveness spells brutality.”

— Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925

About Alfred North Whitehead

1861 – 1947

English mathematician and philosopher.

“Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful.”

“The chief error in philosophy is overstatement.”

“Error is the price we pay for progress.”

“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”