Related:

• Without adventure, civilization is in full decay. -- Alfred North Whitehead
• Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking.
  -- Alfred North Whitehead...
• The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur.
  -- Alfred North Whitehead...
• Seek simplicity -- and distrust it. -- Alfred North Whitehead
• Modern science has imposed on humanity the necessity for wandering. -- Alfred North Whitehead
• We think in generalities, we live in detail. -- Alfred North Whitehead
• 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 thinking about what we are doing.
  The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them....
• There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements.
• There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements.