"We do not require elaborate training merely in order to refrain from embarking upon intricate trains of inference. Such abstinence is only too easy."
Alfred North Whitehead was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology.
"The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, "Seek simplicity and distrust it."
"It is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense."
"Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious."
"Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance."
"Any physical object which by its influence deteriorates its environment, commits suicide."
"We think in generalities, but we live in detail. To make the past live, we must perceive it in detail in addition to thinking of it in generalities."