Alfred North Whitehead Quotes

Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory

I love to read theories without ever using them when working... The paradoxical fact in the aesthetic is that theories are also true in reverse.

There is nothing so practical as a good theory.

There are very few things that are purely conceptual without any hard content.

How empty is theory in the presence of fact!

Theoretical approaches have their place and are, I suppose, essential but a theory must be tempered with reality.

In inventing a model we may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.

The best theory is inspired by practice.

There is no knowledge without theory.

Theories have nothing to do with life.

Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.

If you find that you're spending almost all your time on theory, start turning some attention to practical things; it will improve your theories. If you find that you're spending almost all your time on practice, start turning some attention to theoretical things; it will improve your practice.

Critical reflection on practice is a requirement of the relationship between theory and practice. Otherwise theory becomes simply "blah, blah, blah, " and practice, pure activism.

There is a distinction, but no opposition, between theory and practice. Each to a certain extent supposes the other. Theory is dependent on practice; practice must have preceded theory.

Theories without facts may be barren, but facts without theories are meaningless.

Experience by itself teaches nothing... Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.

A work in which there are theories is like an object which still has the ticket that shows its price.

No more fiction, for now we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.

[Knowledge is governed not by] a theory of knowledge, but by a theory of discursive practice.

Strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood.

Those who are enamoured of practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty of where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.

Everything factual is, in a sense, theory. The blue of the sky exhibits the basic laws of chromatics. There is no sense in looking for something behind phenomena: they are theory.

Good and bad may not be dissevered; There is, as there should be, a commingling.

May we all be doomed to a happy life.

Strange! I don't understand how it is that we can write mathematical expressions and calculate what the thing is going to do without being able to picture it.