Alfred North Whitehead

Every really new idea looks crazy at first.

It is the ideal of speculative philosophy that its fundamental notions shall not seem capable of abstraction from each other. In other words, it is presupposed that no entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that it is the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth. This character is its coherence.

There are deeper types of symbolism, in a sense artificial, and yet such that we could not get on without them. Language, written or spoken, is such a symbolism.

It 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.

Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

Art should aim at the production of individuality in the component details of its compositions.

Love neither rules, nor is unmoved; also it is a little oblivious as to morals. It does not look to the future; for it finds its own reward in the immediate present.

Kecerdasan adalah kecepatan untuk memahami segala sesuatu,
sedangkan kemampuan adalah kesanggupan untuk bertindak bijaksana dalam menghadapi segala sesuatu.

From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling, as if it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in which human intelligence functions. Our reasoning grasps at straws for premises and float on gossamer for deductions.

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato

The many become one, and are increased by one.

Presentational immediacy is our immediate perception of the contemporary external world, appearing as an element constitutive of our own experience. In this appearance the world discloses itself to be a community of actual things, which are actual in the same sense as we are.

Nobody has a right to speak more clearly than he thinks.