John Dewey

“The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.”

— John Dewey

“Empirically, things are poignant, tragic, beautiful, humorous, settled, disturbed, comfortable, annoying, barren, harsh, consoling, splendid, fearful; are such immediately and in their…

— John Dewey

A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly…

— John Dewey

Experiences in order to be educative must lead out into an expanding world of subject matter, a subject matter of facts or…

— John Dewey

A tribe, let us say, is warlike. The successes for which it strives, the achievements upon which it sets store, are connected…

— 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

Doctrine that eliminates or even obscures the function of choice of values and enlistment of desires and emotions in behalf of those…

— John Dewey

There is no such thing as educational value in the abstract. The notion that some subjects and methods and that acquaintance with…

— John Dewey

Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in common; and communication is the way in which…

— John Dewey

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

— John Dewey

But progress in knowledge has made us aware of the superficiality of Plato's lumping of individuals and their original powers into a…

— John Dewey

Even the alleged benefits of war, so far as more than alleged, spring from the fact that conflict of peoples at least…

— John Dewey

“When the organization called soul is free, moving and operative, initial as well as terminal, it is spirit. Qualities are both static,…

— John Dewey

Since in reality there is nothing to which growth is relative save more growth, there is nothing to which education is subordinate…

— John Dewey

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

— John Dewey

Those engaged in directing the actions of others are always in danger of overlooking the importance of the sequential development of those…

— John Dewey

A large part of the art of instruction lies in making the difficulty of new problems large enough to challenge thought, and…

— John Dewey

A man can be prevented from breaking into other persons' houses by shutting him up, but shutting him up may not alter…

— John Dewey

To avoid a split between what men consciously know because they are aware of having learned it by a specific job of…

— John Dewey

The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.

— John Dewey

The religious is any activity pursued in behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss…

— John Dewey

We only think when we are confronted with a problem

— John Dewey

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

— John Dewey

All education which develops power to share effectively in social life is moral.

— John Dewey

It science involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add…

— John Dewey