Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.

You may say that I am just another outdated old man complaining about progress and the changes of time. But, you see, I have well considered that possibility myself, and am prepared o submit to correction by anybody who cares about a community, who can show me how the world is improved by that community's dying.

Conservatism cherishes tradition; innovation fetishizes novelty. They tug in different directions, the one toward the past, the other toward the future.

The coolest things in life are things that you have not done before. That's the key to life: new things always.

For me, the most fun is change or growth. There are definitely elements of both that I like. Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast.

There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.

Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

Well, I like to be kept on my toes. I look for a challenge. I don't like to recreate steps that I've already walked. I like to see if I can create something new.

Playing safe is probably the most unsafe thing in the world. You cannot stand still. You must go forward.

Modernity is not a problem to be overcome but a challenge to be met.

I believe if you are not rediscovering yourself and pushing boundaries, then you are not alive.

One thing that I'm continually reminded of is just to always find something that will challenge you in a new way, a very new way, and that's not the easiest of roads, but it's the most exciting.

I believe unexplored territories and taking on new ventures is the natural progression all human beings must experience.

We have either to progress or to degenerate. Our ancestors did great things in the past, but we have to grow into a fuller life and march beyond even their great achievements.

We are never as modern, as far ahead of the past as we like to think we are.

Risks are a measure of people. People who won't take them are trying to preserve what they have. People who do take them often end up having more. Some risks have a future, and some people call them wrong. But being right may be like walking backwards proving where you've been. Being wrong isn't in the future, or in the past. Being wrong isn't anywhere but being here. Best place to be, eh?

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.

Risk is an essential part of progress.

Tradition, if not constantly recreated, can be as much a millstone as a mill-wheel.

There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.

It just feels to me like the death throes of an America that had many great things about it, but had many negative things about it. I don't want to go back.

The Englishman's strong point is his vigorous insularity; that of the American his power of adaptation. Each of these attitudes has its perils. The Englishman stands firmly on his feet, but he who merely does this never advances. The American's disposition is to step forward even at the risk of a fall.

What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown.

Success is an act of exploration. That means the first thing you have to find is the unknown. Learning is searching; anything else is just waiting.

All human advances occur in the outlaw area.