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
It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts; but until this has occurred, words do not count.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Actions speak louder than words, and instinctual behavior is more significant than verbal expression.
This quote emphasizes the idea that what people truly believe and how they behave is more important than the words they use. While words can influence or corrupt these instincts over time, until that happens, it is the underlying instincts that truly drive human behavior and should be valued over mere speech.
Themes
InstinctsWordsActionsBehaviorCommunication
In practice
Example use cases
In a leadership seminar, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of authentic leadership.
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.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, seek simplicity and distrust it.
Alfred North WhiteheadRead
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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