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But the individual butterfly or earthquake remains just the unique existence which it is. We forget in explaining its occurrence that it is only the occurrence that is explained, not the thing itself.

John Dewey

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John Dewey
Age: 92 †
Born: 1859
Born: October 20
Died: 1952
Died: June 1
Aesthetician
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Professor
Psychologist
Sociologist
Teacher
Trade Unionist
Burlington
Vermont
Dewey
Forget
Earthquake
Individual
Earthquakes
Thing
Explained
Explaining
Butterfly
Remains
Unique
Existence
Occurrence

More quotes by John Dewey

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For one man who thanks God that he is not as other men there are a thousand to offer thanks that they are as other men, sufficiently as others are to escape attention.
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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.
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In order to have a large number of values in common, all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity, to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. Otherwise, the influences which educate some into masters, educates others into slaves.
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Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates invention. It shocks us out of sheep-like passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving…conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity.
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Education is not preparation for life education is life itself.
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Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. Without some goals and some efforts to reach it, no man can live. Education is not preparation for life education is life itself.
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The future of religion is connected with the possibility of developing a faith in the possibilities of human experience and human relationships that will create a vital sense of the solidarity of human interests and inspire action to make that sense a reality.
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The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.
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Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.
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Not perfection as a final goal, but the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of living.
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Human nature exists and operates in an environment. And it is not 'in' that environment as coins are in a box, but as a plant is in the sunlight and soil.
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The acquisition however perfectly of skills is not an end in itself. They are things to be put to use as a contribution to a common and shared life.
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Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest these can be created only by education.
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A response is not just a re-action, a protest, as it were, against being disturbed it is, as the word indicates, an answer. It meets the stimulus, and corresponds with it.
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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.
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The bare fact that language consists of sounds which are mutually intelligible is enough of itself to show that its meaning depends upon connection with a shared experience.
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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.
John Dewey
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Schools should take an active part in directing social change, and share in the construction of a new social order
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We have lost confidence in reason because we have learned that man is chiefly a creature of habit and emotion.
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The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.
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