A Quote by Alfred North Whitehead

Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

Alfred North Whitehead

Quote Topics

Adventure Civilization Decay Full Without

Quote Author

Alfred North Whitehead
English - Mathematician
February 15, 1861 - December 30, 1947

Without adventure all civilization is full of decay. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China.

Alfred North Whitehead

A race preserves its vigor so long as it harbors a real contrast between what has been and what may be; and so long as it is nerved by the vigor to adventure beyond the safeties of the past. Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

Alfred North Whitehead

Without adventure civilization is in full decay. ... The great fact [is] that in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past.

Alfred North Whitehead

The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.

Cyril Connolly

Muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without risk, change without aesthetics, age without values, food without nourishment, power without fairness, facts without rigor, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, complication without depth, fluency without content; these are the sins to remember.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.

George Orwell

New York is full of people . . . with a feeling for the tangential adventure, the risky adventure, the interlude that's not likely to end in any double-ring ceremony.

Joan Didion

Without the instinct for adventure, any civilization, however enlightened; any state, however well-ordered, will wilt and wither.

Kurt Hahn

Human life implies adventure, and there is no adventure without struggles and dangers.

Rene Dubos

... it is a matter of civilizing everyone or not being civilized at all: the decay has always come from a partial civilization.

Freya Stark

Life is full of surprises: new opportunities come up; that's part of the fun - the adventure of life. The thing is, chaos doesn't allow us to enjoy the adventure.