Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us to reach a sensible decision.

We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.

Definitions are the foundation of reason. You can't reason without them.

Professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained.

The difficulty is not to write, but to write what you mean.

Since philosophy is the exploration of the rational, it is for that very reason the apprehension of the present and the actual, not the erection of a beyond, supposed to exist, God knows where, or rather which exists, and we can perfectly well say where, namely in the error of a one-sided, empty, ratiocination.

One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.

Words, like glasses, obscure everything they do not make clear. Before using a fine word, make a place for it.

Few things concentrate the mind more efficiently than the necessity of saying what you mean. It brings you face to face with what you are talking about, what you are actually proposing. It gets you away from the catch phrases that not merely substitute for thought but preclude it.

No blur of inexactness, no cloud of vagueness, is allowable in good writing; from the first seeing to the last putting down, there must be steady lucidity and uncompromise of purpose.

Do you come to a philosopher as to a cunning man, to learn something by magic or witchcraft, beyond what can be known by common prudence and discretion?

Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.

Clarity in language depends on clarity in thought.

I see but one rule: to be clear.

Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple.

Science attempts to find logic and simplicity in nature. Mathematics attempts to establish order and simplicity in human thought.

I sit in my new room and write everything down. My heart never stops talking.

If it was as logical as that, I wouldn't continue to feel as bad as I do. I know what you're saying, and you're absolutely right in a way. But logic and rationality only go so far. Then you know what happens? Ha! Then your heart adds its two cents and everything reasonable goes right-out-the-window.

Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge.

Logic doesn't stop you feeling. You can behave logically and it can hurt like hell. Or it can comfort you. Or release you. Or all at the same time

As human beings, we're given intelligence. This is how we make our way through this reality, how we manifest our reality clearly and coherently.

That which exercises reason is more excellent than that which does not exercise reason; there is nothing more excellent than the universe, therefore the universe exercises reason.

For nothing is more democratic than logic; it is no respecter of persons and makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses.

I think what's really hard is making sense and making what you write clear and smooth-flowing.

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and, as he grows more elegant, becomes less intelligible.