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 mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Language and the human mind are interconnected, influencing each other's development.
This quote by Alfred North Whitehead emphasizes the profound relationship between language and human consciousness. It suggests that while language is a tool for communication, it also shapes our thoughts and perceptions, essentially manifesting our inner selves. The idea that language grants humans a soul underscores the transformative power of speech in defining human experience and existence.
Themes
LanguageMentalitySoulHumanityCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a lecture about the evolution of language and its impact on human society.
More from Alfred North Whitehead
All quotes →The 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.
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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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