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John Dewey

John Dewey Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous John Dewey Quotes

“It may be seriously questioned whether the philosophies... which isolate mind and set it over against the world did not have their origin in the fact that the reflective or theoretical class of men elaborated a large stock of ideas which social conditions did not allow them to act upon and test. Consequently men were thrown back into their own thoughts as ends in themselves.”

MenWorldMindMayIdeasEndsPhilosophyFactsSocialClassConditionsTestsThrownTheoreticalSocial Conditions
Book:Democracy and Education: Top American Authors
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“The premium so often put in schools upon external "discipline," and upon marks and rewards, upon promotion and keeping back, are the obverse of the lack of attention given to life situations in which the meaning of facts, ideas, principles, and problems is vitally brought home.”

IdeasFactsProblemHomeSchoolGivenAttentionSituationPrinciplesDisciplineMarkRewardsPromotionPremium
Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education
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“I know that there are many persons to whom it seems derogatory to link a body of philosophic ideas to the social life and cultureof their epoch. They seem to accept a dogma of immaculate conception of philosophical systems.”

KnowsPersonsIdeasBodySeemsSocialAcceptingPhilosophicalLinksConceptionDogmaSocial LifeEpochPhilosophicImmaculateDerogatoryImmaculate Conception
Book:The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy
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“Experiences in order to be educative must lead out into an expanding world of subject matter, a subject matter of facts or information and of ideas. This condition is satisfied only as the educator views teaching and learning as a continuous process of reconstruction of experience.”

WorldIdeasMatterFactsOrderProcessViewsEducationTeachingConditionsSubjectsInformationSatisfiedExpandingSubject MatterMatter Of FactEducatorReconstructionTeaching And Learning
Book:Experience and Education, 60th Anniversary Edition
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“It is part of the educator's responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”

FirstsTwoIdeasFactsProblemGrowsEducationResponsibilityConditionsInformationStudentsCapacityProductionsActiveRangeTwo ThingsQuestsNew IdeasEducatorLearners
Book:Experience And Education
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“Every one of the constituent elements of a social group, in a modern city as in a savage tribe, is born immature, helpless, without language, beliefs, ideas, or social standards. Each individual, each unit who is the carrier of the life-experience of his group, in time passes away. Yet the life of the group goes on.”

IdeasIndividualBeliefLanguageSocialBornCitiesGroupsModernGoes OnElementsStandardsLife ExperienceSavagesHelplessUnitsTribesPassing AwayImmatureConstituentsTime PassesCarrierSocial Groups
Book:Democracy And Education
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“In undeveloped social groups, we find very little formal teaching and training. Savage groups mainly rely for instilling needed dispositions into the young upon the same sort of association which keeps adults loyal to their group. They have no special devices, material, or institutions for teaching save in connection with initiation ceremonies by which the youth are inducted into full social membership. For the most part, they depend upon children learning the customs of the adults, acquiring their emotional set and stock of ideas, by sharing in what the elders are doing.”

ChildrenLittlesIdeasYoungSocialGroupsTeachingSpecialYouthEmotionalMaterialsDependsNeededTrainingAdultsConnectionsInstitutionsRelyDevicesCustomsAssociationLoyalSavagesFormalDispositionCeremonyEldersMembershipInitiationChildren LearningSocial Groups
Book:Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
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“The importance of language in gaining knowledge is doubtless the chief cause of the common notion that knowledge may be passed directly from one to another. It almost seems as if all we have to do to convey an idea into the mind of another is to convey a sound into his ear. Thus imparting knowledge gets assimilated to a purely physical process.”

IfsMindMayIdeasSeemsLanguageCausesProcessSoundCommonEarsImportanceNotionChiefsGaining Knowledge
Book:Democracy And Education
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“Of these three words, direction, control, and guidance, the last best conveys the idea of assisting through cooperation the natural capacities of the individuals guided; control conveys rather the notion of an energy brought to bear from without and meeting some resistance from the one controlled; direction is a more neutral term and suggests the fact that the active tendencies of those directed are led in a certain continuous course, instead of dispersing aimlessly.”

IdeasFactsLastsCertainThreeCoursesIndividualEnergyTermNaturalBearsCapacityMeetingsNotionActiveResistanceTendenciesGuidanceControlledCooperationThree WordsAssisting
Author:John Dewey
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“To have an idea of a thing is not just to get certain sensations from it. It is to be able to respond to the thing in view of its place in an inclusive scheme of action; it is to foresee the drift and probable consequence of the action of the thing upon us and of our action upon it.”

IdeasAbleActionCertainViewsConsequenceSensationsSchemesOur Actions
Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education
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“The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot be applied to all the members of a society except where intercourse of man with man is mutual, and except where there is adequate provision for the reconstruction of social habits and institutions by means of wide stimulation arising from equitably distributed interests. And this means a democratic society.”

MenMeanIdeasIndividualSocialGrowthInterestChangeEducationDemocracySocietyObjectsHabitMembersCapacityAimInstitutionsDemocraticRewardsWideMutualAdequateProvisionIntercourseDemocracies HaveReconstructionDemocratic SocietyStimulationSocial DemocracyAim Of Education
Book:Democracy And Education
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“Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference.”

WayGivingIdeasFormAttitudeAcceptanceHabitAbstractRejectionLogicalCategoriesAdoptionPreferenceAversionIdeas And InnovationOld Ideas
Book:The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought
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“I believe that the teacher's place and work in the school is to be interpreted from this same basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.”

BelieveChildrenIdeasSchoolFormCertainI BelieveCommunityTeacherInfluenceHabitMembersBasesEducationalSelectResponding
Book:The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy
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“Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes. Genuine ignorance is profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, can't terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas.”

ThinkingGivingMindPersonsIdeasSuccessTermAbilityFailingHumilityIgnoranceOptimismOvercomingPerseveranceCuriosityGenuineFamiliarPhrasesRepeatsNew IdeasCoatsPropositionsProfitableConceitOpen Mindedness
Author:John Dewey
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“That the great majority of those who leave school should have some idea of the kind of evidence required to substantiate given types of belief does not seem unreasonable. Nor is it absurd to expect that they should go forth with a lively interest in the ways in which knowledge is improved and a marked distaste for all conclusions reached in disharmony with the methods of scientific inquiry.”

WayShouldKindDoeIdeasSeemsSchoolScienceBeliefGivenInterestKnowledgeTypeEvidenceShould HaveMethodMajorityAbsurdConclusionInquiryLivelyUnreasonableDistasteDisharmony
Book:The Middle Works, 1899-1924: 1910-1911
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“No thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another. When it is told it is to the one to whom it is told another fact, not an idea. The communication may stimulate the other person to realize the question for himself and to think out a like idea, or it may smother his intellectual interest and suppress his dawning effort at thought. But what he directly gets cannot be an idea. Only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way out, does he think.”

ThinkingWayFirstsMayPersonsDoeIdeasFactsProblemHandsInterestRealizingEffortConditionsCommunicationFindingsIntellectualExperienceSeekingNo IdeaWrestling
Book:The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education
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“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. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a pet notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different.”

InspirationalMadeIdeasDifferentSelfEyeChoicesBeliefPathTroubleWeaknessEarsRegardNotionCommittedDefenseResistanceMade ItPetConceitTroublesomeRutsPath Of Least Resistance
Book:The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1933
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“In laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute permanency, in treating the forms that had been regarded as types of fixity and perfection as originating and passing away, the Origin of Species introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion.”

ThinkingIdeasEndsHandsFormReligiousMoralTypePerfectionLogicAbsolutesSacredSpeciesBoundsPassingPassingsTreatmentPassing AwayArkReligion And PoliticsOrigin Of Species
Book:The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, education, democracy
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