“Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.”

Source: Attributed from posthumous publications, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1954), p. 135; Ch. 17, December 15, 1939.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehend…" by Alfred North Whitehead?
Alfred North Whitehead photo
Alfred North Whitehead 112
English mathematician and philosopher 1861–1947

Related quotes

Wallace Stevens photo

“To be an evasion, a thing not apprehended or
Not apprehended well. Does the poet
Evade us, as in a senseless element?”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change
Context: p>Is there a poem that never reaches words And one that chaffers the time away?
Is the poem both peculiar and general?
There’s a meditation there, in which there seemsTo be an evasion, a thing not apprehended or
Not apprehended well. Does the poet
Evade us, as in a senseless element?</p

Daniel Goleman photo
Andrei Tarkovsky photo
Ursula Goodenough photo

“I profess my Faith. For me, the existence of all this complexity and awareness and intent and beauty, and my ability to apprehend it, serves as the ultimate meaning and the ultimate value.”

Ursula Goodenough (1943) American biologist

Quoted in "Speaking of Faith: The Morality of Nature" by Krista Tippett in American Public Media (7 April 2005) http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/moralityofnature/kristasjournal.shtml
Context: I profess my Faith. For me, the existence of all this complexity and awareness and intent and beauty, and my ability to apprehend it, serves as the ultimate meaning and the ultimate value. The continuation of life reaches around, grabs its own tail, and forms a sacred circle that requires no further justification, no Creator, no super-ordinate meaning of meaning, no purpose other than that the continuation continue until the sun collapses or the final meteor collides. I confess a credo of continuation. And in so doing, I confess as well a credo of human continuation.

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) photo

“The subject being unusual, I fear that I shall not make myself intelligible, but I will do my endeavour, that the reasons of our judgment may be apprehended.”

John Holt (Lord Chief Justice) (1642–1710) English lawyer and Lord Chief Justice of England

B. v. Knight and Burton (1699), 1 Raym. 527.

Thomas à Kempis photo
Thiago Silva photo

“He has the quickness, he has the ability on the ball. Thiago Silva is an incredible player and extremely intelligent.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

José Mourinho (Chelsea), 2014 http://www.sambafoot.com/fr/informations/58637_jose_mourinho_est_fan_de_thiago_silva.html
From coaches and club directors

Edmund Burke photo

“Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment.”

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Context: Where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves, in a great measure, their own instruments. They are nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest controlling powers on the earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual in public acts is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made subject to punishment.

Lucretius photo

“If you well apprehend and keep in mind these things, nature free at once and rid of her haughty lords is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods.”

De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
Original: (la) Quae bene cognita si teneas, natura videtur
Libera continuo, dominis privata superbis,
ipsa sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers.

Book II, lines 1090–1092 (tr. Munro)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

Related topics