Alfred North Whitehead Art Quotations

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure.

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience...

The human body is an instrument for the production of art in the life of the human soul.

Art heightens the sense of humanity. It gives an elation to feeling which is supernatural...A million sunsets will not spur us on towards civilization. It requires Art to evoke into consciousness the finite perfections which lie ready for human achievement.

Fertilization of the soul is the reason for the necessity of art.

Education is the acquisition of the art of the utilisation of knowledge.

A general definition of civilization: a civilized society is exhibiting the fine qualities of truth, beauty, adventure, art, peace.

The progress of Science consists in observing interconnections and in showing with a patient ingenuity that the events of this ever-shifting world are but examples of a few general relations, called laws. To see what is general in what is particular, and what is permanent in what is transitory, is the aim of scientific thought.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment...

Great art is more than a transient refreshment. It is something which adds to the permanent richness of the soul's self-attainment. It justifies itself both by its immediate enjoyment, and also by its discipline of the inmost being. Its discipline is not distinct from enjoyment but by reason of it. It transforms the soul into the permanent realization of values extending beyond its former self.