All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is eternity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the significance of the present moment as a reflection of the entirety of existence across time.
Alfred North Whitehead's quote highlights the profound idea that the present moment is not merely a point in time but rather a culmination of all past and future experiences. In perceiving the present as the entirety of existence, we are invited to appreciate life as a continuous flow where every moment contains the essence of eternity, bridging the past and future and suggesting that time itself is a dimension that encompasses all experiences and realities.
Themes
PresentExistenceEternityTimePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about mindfulness, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of living in the moment.
More from Alfred North Whitehead
All quotes βThe vitality of thought is in adventure. Idea's won't keep. Something must be done about them. When the idea is new, its custodians have fervour, live for it, and, if need be, die for it. Their inheritors receive the idea, perhaps now strong and successful, but without inheriting the fervour; so the idea settles down to a comfortable middle age, turns senile, and dies.
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The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
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As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
I consider Christianity to be one of the great disasters of the human race... It would be impossible to imagine anything more un - Christianlike than theology.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
Inventive genius requires pleasurable mental activity as a condition for its vigorous exercise. "Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much closer to the truth. The basis of growth of modern invention is science, and science is almost wholly the outgrowth of pleasurable intellectual curiosity.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
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