We cannot think first and act afterward. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

More from Alfred North Whitehead

• Almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced.
• In philosophical discussion, the merest hint of dogmatic certainty as to finality of statement is an exhibition of folly.
• What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.
• Accept loss forever
• A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.
• A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.