Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Dewey
John Dewey

John Dewey Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllSocialThinkingMeanMenSchoolFactsWayEducationHumansActivityFormIfsMayProcessIdeasIndividualMethodChildrenConditionsDemocracy

Famous John Dewey Quotes

“Plato defined a slave as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. This condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense. It is found wherever men are engaged in activity which is socially serviceable, but whose service they do not understand and have no personal interest in.”

MenPurposeFoundInterestAcceptingConditionsActivitySlaverySlaveDefinedEngagedPlatoPersonal Interest
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“To oscillate between drill exercises that strive to attain efficiency in outward doing without the use of intelligence, and an accumulation of knowledge that is supposed to be an ultimate end in itself, means that education accepts the present social conditions as final, and thereby takes upon itself the responsibility for perpetuating them. A reorganization of education so that learning takes place in connection with the intelligent carrying forward of purposeful activities is a slow work. It can be accomplished only piecemeal, a step at a time.”

MeanEndsUseSocialResponsibilityAcceptingStepsConditionsExerciseActivityConnectionsUltimateIntelligentStriveFinalsSupposed To BeAccomplishedWorking ItEfficiencyAccumulationDrillsPerpetuatingSocial ConditionsReorganization
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“The imagination is the medium of appreciation in every field. The engagement of the imagination is the only thing that makes any activity more than mechanical. Unfortunately, it is too customary to identify the imaginative with the imaginary, rather than with a warm and intimate taking in of the full scope of a situation.”

ImaginationSituationFieldsActivityAppreciationWarmMediumsIntimateEngagementImaginaryScopeImaginative
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction.”

IndividualSocialProcessConsciousnessShareActivityBasesMethodRegulationAdjustmentReconstructionSocial Consciousness
Book:The Early Works, 1882-1898: 1895-1898. Early essays
Create image

“...compartmentalization of occupations and interests bring about a separation of that mode of activity commonly called 'practice' from insight; of imagination from executive 'doing.' Each of these activities is then assigned its own place in which it must abide. Those who write the anatomy of experience then suppose that these divisions inhere in the very constitution of human nature.”

WritingHumansInterestImaginationPracticeHuman NatureActivityConstitutionInsightSeparationExecutivesDivisionOccupationAnatomy
Author:John Dewey
Create image

“The parts of a machine work with a maximum of cooperativeness for a common result, but they do not form a community. If, however, they were all cognizant of the common end and all interested in it so that they regulated their specific activity in view of it, then they would form a community. But this would involve communication. Each would have to know what the other was about and would have to have some way of keeping the other informed as to his own purpose and progress.”

IfsKnowsWayEndsFormPurposeCommunityResultsViewsCommonProgressCommunicationActivityMachinesMaximumCognizant
Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education
Create image

“The activity of the immature human being is simply played upon to secure habits which are useful. He is trained like an animal rather than educated like a human being. His instincts remain attached to their original objects of pain or pleasure. But to get happiness or to avoid the pain of failure he has to act in a way agreeable to others.”

WayHumansPainHuman BeingsPleasureAnimalObjectsHabitActivityOriginalsInstinctEducatedSecureImmature
Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education
Create image

“By doing his share in the associated activity, the individual appropriates the purpose which actuates it, becomes familiar with its methods and subject matters, acquires needed skill, and is saturated with its emotional spirit.”

MatterSpiritPurposeIndividualShareSubjectsEmotionalNeededActivitySkillsMethodFamiliarAcquireSubject MatterSaturated
Book:Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Create image

“Individuals are certainly interested, at times, in having their own way, and their own way may go contrary to the ways of others. But they are also interested, and chiefly interested upon the whole, in entering into the activities of others and taking part in conjoint and cooperative doings. Otherwise, no such thing as a community would be possible.”

WayMayWholeWould BeIndividualCommunityActivityContraryEnteringCooperativesDoings
Book:Democracy And Education
Create image

“If the eyes are open and there is light, seeing occurs; the stimulus is but a condition of the fulfillment of the proper function of the organ, not an outside interruption. To some extent, then, all direction or control is a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully what some organ is already tending to do.”

IfsEndsLightEyeSeeingConditionsActivityFunctionFulfillmentOrgansAssistanceStimulusInterruptions
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
Create image

“When the child sees the parent looking for something, it is as natural for it also to look for the object and to give it over when it finds it, as it was, under other circumstances, to receive it. Multiply such an instance by the thousand details of daily intercourse, and one has a picture of the most permanent and enduring method of giving direction to the activities of the young.”

GivingLooksChildrenYoungParentNaturalObjectsCircumstancesThousandActivityMethodEndureDetailsInstancePermanentIntercourseGiving Directions
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
Create image

“The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of intelligence, that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worth while. The commonest mistake made about freedom is, I think, to identify it with freedom of movement, or, with the external or physical side of activity.”

ThinkingMadeWisdomPurposeSidesMistakeMovementActivityJudgmentImportanceEndureObservationBehalf
Book:Experience and Education, 60th Anniversary Edition
Create image

“Since education is not a means to living, but is identical with the operation of living a life which is fruitful and inherently significant, the only ultimate value which can be set up is just the process of living itself. And this is not an end to which studies and activities are subordinate means; it is the whole of which they are ingredients.”

MeanEndsWholeValuesProcessStudyActivityUltimateSignificantOperationsIngredientsIdenticalSubordinates
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
Create image

“It is not a nature cure, a system of faith healing, or a physical culture, or a medical treatment, or a semi-occult philosophy. As to what it is, Dewey's brief but striking description appeals most and has the least chance of being proved incorrect: 'It the Alexander Technique bears the same relation to education that education itself bears to all other human activities.'”

HumansPhilosophyCultureChanceHealingBearsActivityRelationTechniqueMedicalCuresAppealsDescriptionTreatmentOccultHuman ActivityMedical TreatmentFaith Healing
Author:John Dewey
Create image

“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his [sic] activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”

ThinkingPhilosophyPurposeProcessStudyGreaterInvolvedActivityDirectImportanceActiveTraditionalSecureProgressiveCooperationConstructionParticipationDefectsEmphasisNo PointFormationPupilsLearning ProcessLearnersSounderTraditional Education
Author:John Dewey
Create image

“The good society was, like the good self, a diverse yet harmonious, growing yet unified whole, a fully participatory democracy in which the powers and capacities of the individuals that comprised it were harmonized by their cooperative activities into a community that permitted the full and free expression of individuality.”

SelfWholeIndividualCommunityDemocracyGrowingSocietyExpressionActivityCapacityIndividualityDiverseHarmoniousUnifiedCooperativesFree ExpressionParticipatory Democracy
Author:John Dewey
Create image