Thinking Quotes by John Dewey

We only think when we are confronted with a problem

— John Dewey

Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society.

— John Dewey

We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts.

— John Dewey

Expertness of taste is at once the result and reward of constant exercise of thinking.

— John Dewey

Creative thinking will improve as we relate the new fact to the old and all facts to each other.

— John Dewey

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

— John Dewey

Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites.

— John Dewey

The real process of education should be the process of learning to think through the application of real problems.

— John Dewey

Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites. It is given to formulating its beliefs in terms of Either/Ors, between which…

— John Dewey

Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking;…

— John Dewey

You can teach students to develop the ability to think reflectively, and you can help them understand what this means, but if…

— John Dewey

The phrase "think for one's self" is a pleonasm. Unless one does it for one's self, it isn't thinking.

— John Dewey

I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context.

— John Dewey

Men have never fully used [their] powers to advance the good in life, because they have waited upon some power external to…

— John Dewey

We cannot think of ourselves save as to some extent social being. Hence, we cannot separate the idea of ourselves and our…

— John Dewey

We sometimes talk as if "original research" were a peculiar prerogative of scientists or at least of advanced students. But all thinking…

— John Dewey

Teaching can be compared to selling commodities. No one can sell unless someone buys ... yet there are teachers who think they…

— John Dewey

What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences. I certainly hope that the Board of Education…

— John Dewey

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. Genuine ignorance is…

— John Dewey

The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of…

— John Dewey

It is not truly realistic or scientific to take short views, to sacrifice the future to immediate pressure, to ignore facts and…

— John Dewey

For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against…

— John Dewey

The intellectual content of religions has always finally adapted itself to scientific and social conditions after they have become clear… For this…

— John Dewey

No thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another. When it is told it is…

— John Dewey

We are a people of many races, many faiths, creeds, and religions. I do not think that the men who made the…

— John Dewey

There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of…

— John Dewey

Historically the great movements for human liberation have always been movements to change institutions and not to preserve them intact. It follows…

— John Dewey

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

— John Dewey

Such words as "society" and "community" are likely to be misleading, for they have a tendency to make us think there is…

— John Dewey

When men think and believe in one set of symbols and act in ways which are contrary to their professed and conscious…

— John Dewey

Thinking is the accurate and deliberate instituting of connections between what is done and its consequences.

— John Dewey

Thinking and feeling that have to do with action in association with others is as much a social mode of behavior as…

— John Dewey

I do not think that any thorough-going modification of college curriculum would be possible without a modification of the methods of instruction.

— John Dewey

Society exists through a process of transmission quite as much as biological life. This transmission occurs by means of communication of habits…

— John Dewey

The routine of custom tends to deaden even scientific inquiry; it stands in the way of discovery and of the active scientific…

— John Dewey

Intelligent thinking means an increment of freedom in action-an emancipation from chance and fatality. 'Thought' represents the suggestion of a way of…

— John Dewey

In laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute permanency, in treating the forms that had been regarded as types of fixity…

— John Dewey

In general it may be said that the things which we take for granted without inquiry or reflection are just the things…

— John Dewey