118 John Dewey Quotes

One of the famous John Dewey quotes is “Democracy has to be born anew every generation and education is its midwife,” as drawn from ‘The Need Of An Industrial Education In An Industrial Democracy’.John Dewey was born on October 20, 1859. He was an alumnus of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Vermont.John Dewey was a psychologist, educational reformer, and philosopher. He studied ethics, social theory, and metaphysics. His ideas about social reform, social psychology, mental process, educative growth, and education have been influential. John Dewey’s theory suggests an interdisciplinary curriculum or curriculum concentrating on connecting different topics where learners can voluntarily walk in and out of the lecture room. This theory would aid them in following their interests and creating a technique to develop and use specific knowledge. This theory is also one of his scientific principle and educational idea about human nature that demand thinking.John Dewey also advocated a progressive education system containing practical learning for students and teachers, defining education as a social process in democratic living. One of John Dewey’s misattributed quotes, “Education is life itself,” means education is not a preparation for life but life itself. This quote is a paraphrase of his ideas expressed in ‘Democracy And Education’ and ‘My Pedagogic Creed’. John Dewey is famous as one of the first inventors of functional psychology and advanced in psychological studies. Read these amazing John Dewey quotes to know his ideas on social reform and the educational process.John Dewey Quotes On EducationRead these inspiring John Dewey quotes on education to reignite your passion for learning.“The conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind.““Purposeful action is thus the goal of all that is truly educative."“Everything depends on the quality of the experience which is had.” - ‘Selected Educational Writings’.“The educational process has no end beyond itself; it is its own end."“Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence.” - ‘James And Dewey On Belief And Experience’.“All education which develops power to share effectively in social life is moral.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“The origin of thinking is some perplexity, confusion or doubt."“The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Mere physical growing up, mere mastery of the bare necessities of subsistence will not suffice to reproduce the life of the group.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.” - ‘Selected Educational Writings’, Francis William Garforth and John Dewey.“The aim of education is growth: the aim of growth is more growth."“Etymologically, the word education means just a process of leading or bringing up.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden and must be wasted from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry.““We only think when confronted with a problem."“The imagination is the medium of appreciation in every field.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“The breakdown of Plato’s philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which should then improve education, and so on indefinitely.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Knowledge is a possession held in trust for the furthering of the well-being of all."“To take an interest is to be on the alert, to care about, to be attentive.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Balance is balancing."“A person who is trained to consider his actions, to undertake them deliberately, is in so far forth disciplined.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“In undeveloped social groups, we find very little formal teaching and training.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“I believe that the school is primarily a social institution.” - ‘Selected Educational writings’, Francis William Garforth and John Dewey.“Science is a systematic means of gaining reliable knowledge.““Thought is impossible without words."“Man is logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises.” - ‘The Poems Of John Dewey’.“Education as growth or maturity should be an ever-present process."“If all meanings could be adequately expressed by words, the arts of painting and music would not exist.” - ‘The Later Works Of John Dewey, 1925-1953’.“As a matter of fact, a modern society is many societies more or less loosely connected.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“I believe that in the ideal school we have the reconciliation of the individualistic and the institutional ideals.” - ‘The Early Works, 1892-1898’.“To be interested is to be absorbed in, wrapped up in carried away by, some object.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.John Dewey Quotes On Teachers (These John Dewey quotes about progressive education are all you need to get motivated.)Below is a list of John Dewey’s quotes on teachers.“What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences."“Inference is always an invasion of the unknown, a leap from the known.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“You can teach students to develop the ability to think reflectively, and you can help them understand what this means, but if they are not inclined to do so they never will."“Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril.” - ‘Experience And Nature’.“One might as well say he has sold when no one has bought as to say he has taught when no one has learned.” - ‘The Middle Works, 1899-1924: 1910-1911’.“Language exists only when it is listened to as well as spoken. The hearer is an indispensable partner.” - ‘The Later Works Of John Dewey, 1925-1953’.“Every subject at some phase of its development should possess, what is for the individual concerned with it, an aesthetic quality.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Failure is instructive."“It is a familiar and significant saying that a problem well put is half-solved.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1938’.“There is no such thing as educational value in the abstract.” - ‘Experience And Education, 60th Anniversary Edition’.“Of what use, educationally speaking, is it to be able to see the end in the beginning?” - ‘The Middle Works Of John Dewey, 1889-1924’.“Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.” - ‘The Middle Works, 1899-1924’.“The first office of the social organ we call the school is to provide a simplified environment.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Selection aims not only at simplifying but at weeding out what is undesirable.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Teaching may be compared to selling commodities.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1929-1930’.“Mankind likes to think in terms of extreme opposites.” - ‘Experience And Education, 60th Anniversary Edition’.“Like the soil, mind is fertilized while it lies fallow, until a new burst of bloom ensues.” - ‘Art As Experience’.“An empirical philosophy is, in any case, a kind of intellectual disrobing.” - ‘The Later Works Of John Dewey’.“No thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another.““Every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling.““The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made.““Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another."“The routine of custom tends to deaden even scientific inquiry; it stands in the way of discovery and of the active scientific worker.” - ‘Reconstruction In Philosophy’.“Art is the most effective mode of communications that exists."“A being whose activities are associated with others has a social environment.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us."“It is difficult to connect general principles with such thoroughly concrete things as children.” - ‘The Child And The Curriculum: Including The School And Society’.“Some experiences are mis-educative.” - ‘Experience And Education’.“We’re all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Teachers are the agents through which knowledge and skills are communicated and rules of conduct enforced.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1938-1939’.Motivational Quotes Of John DeweyRead this list of motivational John Dewey quotes.“Mind is a verb, not a noun."“Insight into soul-action, ability to discriminate the genuine from the sham and capacity to further one and discourage the other.” - ‘The Middle Works, 1899-1924: 1903-1906’.“Expertness of taste is at once the result and reward of constant exercise of thinking.” - The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1927-1928’.“Complete adaptation to environment means death."“There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“If we learn not humility, we learn nothing."“One code prevails in the family; another, on the street; a third, in the workshop or store; a fourth, in the religious association.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“To be born, to live, and to die is merely to change forms…"“The result of the educative process is capacity for further education.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“The outstanding problem of the Public is discovery and identification of itself.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to feel important."“To have an idea of a thing is not just to get certain sensations from it.” - ‘The Middle Works Of John Dewey, 1899-1924’.“The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good.” - ‘Reconstruction In Philosophy’.“Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful.” - ‘Experience And Nature’.“A tribe, let us say, is warlike.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“The very problem of mind and body suggests division; I do not know of anything so disastrously affected by the habit of division as this particular theme."“Where there is giving, there must be taking.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“All communication is like art.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“What’s in a question, you ask? Everything.““We are a people of many races, many faiths, creeds, and religions.““In the olden times, the diversity of groups was largely a geographical matter.““As a child lives today, he will live tomorrow.““Creative thinking will improve as we relate the new fact to the old and all facts to each other."“In general, every stimulus directs activity.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Confidence is directness and courage in meeting the facts of life.““Time and memory are true artists; they remold reality nearer to the heart’s desire."“Things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Man lives in a world of surmise of mystery, of uncertainties."“As some species die out, forms better adapted to utilize the obstacles against which they struggled in vain come into being.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Knowledge falters when imagination clips its wings or fears to use them.” - ‘James and Dewey On Belief And Experience’.John Dewey Quotes On FreedomCheck out these John Dewey quotes on freedom.“There’s all the difference in the world between having something to say, and having to say something.” - ‘The School And Society’.“The only freedom that is of enduring importance is the freedom of observation and of judgement, exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worthwhile."“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.” - ‘The Quest For Certainty’.“We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an ideal society.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“We naturally associate democracy, to be sure, with freedom of action, but freedom of action without freed capacity of thought behind it is only chaos.” - ‘The Middle Works, 1899-1924’.“Even in a savage tribe, the achievements of adults are far beyond what the immature members would be capable of if left to themselves.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Historically, the great movements for human liberation have always been movements to change institutions and not to preserve them intact.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“Every society gets encumbered with what is trivial, with dead wood from past, and with what is positively perverse.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.” - ‘John Dewey And American Democracy’.“We talk much more about individualism and liberty than our ancestors.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“If there is one conclusion to which human experience unmistakably points it is that democratic ends demand democratic methods for their realization.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“Giving and taking of orders modifies actions and results, but does not of itself effect a sharing of purposes, a communication of interests.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“Society exists through a process of transmission quite as much as biological life.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“A democracy is more than a form of government.” - ‘The Middle Works, 1899-1924’.“We have advanced far enough to say that democracy is a way of life.” - ‘Political Writings’.“Instruction is important.““No man’s credit is as good as his money.““Always make the other person feel important."“While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“The moment philosophy supposes it can find a final and comprehensive solution, it ceases to be inquiry and becomes either apologetics or propaganda.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1938’.“The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic."“The relationships of our present social life are so numerous and so interwoven that a child placed in the most favorable position could not readily share in many of the most important of them.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Various epochs of the past have had their own characteristic struggles and interests.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature…” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“The demand for liberty is a demand for power, either for possession of powers of action not already possessed or for retention and expansion of powers already possessed.” - ‘The Later Works, 1925-1953’.“With the growth of civilization, the gap between the original capacities of the immature and the standards and customs of the elders increases.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“There is no common understanding, and no community life.” - ‘Democracy And Education’.“To me, faith means not worrying.”