Quotes from John Dewey

We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an ideal society.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

Democracy is a form of government only because it is a form of moral and spiritual association.

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.

Cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.

The need for growth, for development, for change, is fundamental to life.

Always make the other person feel important.

If we teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow.

How can the child learn to be a free and responsible citizen when the teacher is bound?

I believe that in this way the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of God.

Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling.

Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.

The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt.

One can think effectively only when one is willing to endure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching.

The result of the educative process is capacity for further education.

Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart's desire.

When men think and believe in one set of symbols and act in ways which are contrary to their professed and conscious ideas, confusion and insincerity are bound to result.

Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment.

There is all the difference in the world between having something to say and having to say something.

There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.

The outstanding problem of the Public is discovery and identification of itself

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his success.

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs.