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The theory of the method of knowing which is advanced in these pages may be termed pragmatic. ... Only that which has been organized into our disposition so as to enable us to adapt the environment to our needs and adapt our aims and desires to the situation in which we live is really knowledge.

John Dewey

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John Dewey
Age: 92 †
Born: 1859
Born: October 20
Died: 1952
Died: June 1
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More quotes by John Dewey

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Things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
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To avoid a split between what men consciously know because they are aware of having learned it by a specific job of learning, and what they unconsciously know because they have absorbed it in the formation of their characters by intercourse with others, becomes an increasingly delicate task with every development of special schooling.
John Dewey
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We talk much more about individualism and liberty than our ancestors. But as so often happens, when anything becomes conscious, the consciousness is compensatory for absence in practice.
John Dewey
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The young of human beings compare so poorly in original efficiency with the young of many of the lower animals, that even the powers needed for physical sustentation have to be acquired under tuition. How much more, then, is this the case with respect to all the technological, artistic, scientific, and moral achievements of humanity!
John Dewey
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If there is one conclusion to which human experience unmistakably points it is that democratic ends demand democratic methods for their realization.
John Dewey
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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. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing.
John Dewey
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Independent self-reliant people would be a counterproductive anachronism in the collective society of the future where people will be defined by their associations.
John Dewey
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Change as change is mere flux and lapse it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes.
John Dewey
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Liberty is not just an idea, an abstract principle. It is power, effective power to do specific things. There is no such thing as liberty in general liberty, so to speak, at large.
John Dewey
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To the being of fully alive, the future is not ominous but a promise it surrounds the present like a halo.
John Dewey
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Man's home is nature his purposes and aims are dependent for execution upon natural conditions. Separated from such conditions they become empty dreams and idle indulgences of fancy.
John Dewey
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Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies.
John Dewey
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Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.
John Dewey
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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.
John Dewey
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If a person cannot foresee the consequences of his act, and is not capable of understanding what he is told about its outcome by those with more experience, it is impossible for him to guide his act intelligently. In such a state, every act is alike to him.
John Dewey
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No man's credit is as good as his money.
John Dewey
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For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against other ‘isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities.
John Dewey
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To savages it would seem preposterous to seek out a place where nothing but learning was going on in order that one might learn.
John Dewey