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About this quote

What does it mean?
Practical people focus on facts while philosophers focus on general rules. Both groups exist everywhere and always.
In plain terms
Some focus on facts, others on big ideas, everywhere.
What can you take from it?
Balance attention between facts and general principles.

Where it applies

  • policy making
  • research
  • business strategy

Putting it to work

  • integrating data with theory
  • bridging teams

Questions to consider

  • Do you lean more toward facts or principles?

Another view

It splits people into two camps too strictly.

More from Alfred North Whitehead

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  2. The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.

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  3. It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thin…

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