Thomas Jefferson, "Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Law, 13 June 1814" (1814)
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The creator would indeed have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social animal, without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man; because there is no rule without exceptions: but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule. Some men are born without the organs of sight, or of hearing, or without hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man is born without these faculties: and sight, hearing and hands may with truth enter into the general definition of Man.
Alfred North Whitehead in Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead recorded by Lucien Price (Atlantic-Little, Brown and Company: 1954; orig. August 30, 1941), p. 177.