“Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its song, and the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellence of the human mind.”

as cited in History, Humanity and Evolution (1989), p. 383.
1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent, the nightingale for its son…" by Alfred North Whitehead?
Alfred North Whitehead photo
Alfred North Whitehead 112
English mathematician and philosopher 1861–1947

Related quotes

Omar Khayyám photo
Omar Khayyám photo
Alexander Bogdanov photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
R. H. Tawney photo
U.G. Krishnamurti photo

“If nature had been allowed to go on in its own way, everybody would have become a unique flower. Why should there be only roses in this world?”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Part 4: Betwixt Bewilderment and Understanding
The Mystique of Enlightenment (1982)
Context: I have one thing against medical technology. You see, the very desire to understand the human being is to control him — that is why I am not quite in sympathy. The day you control the endocrine glands, you will change the personality of man; you won't need any brainwashing. Brainwashing is a very elaborate process. If nature had been allowed to go on in its own way, everybody would have become a unique flower. Why should there be only roses in this world? What for? A grass flower or a dandelion flower has as much beauty, as much importance in the scheme of things. Why should there be only jasmine flowers, roses, or some other flower? So, the possibility is there of a change taking place which is sudden, not progressive. It has to happen in a very sudden and explosive way to break the whole thing.

Theo van Doesburg photo
John Marshall photo
Livy photo

“There is an old saying which, from its truth, has become proverbial, that friendships should be immortal, enmities mortal.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XL, sec. 46
History of Rome

Related topics