Quote

An idea is a method of evading, circumventing or surmounting through reflection, obstacles that otherwise would have to be attacked by brute force.

John Dewey

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Would
Obstacles
Reflection
Otherwise
Method
Surmounting
Imagination
Evading
Idea
Brute
Force
Brutes
Ideas
Attacked

More quotes by John Dewey

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.
John Dewey
Image
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
Image
[T]he schools, through reliance upon the spur of competition and the bestowing of special honors and prizes, only build up and strengthen the disposition that makes an individual when he leaves school employ his special talents and superior skill to outwit his fellow without respect for the welfare of others
John Dewey
Image
Within even the most social group there are many relations that are not as yet social.
John Dewey
Image
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
Image
When things have a meaning for us, we mean (intend, propose) what we do: when they do not, we act blindly, unconsciously, unintelligently.
John Dewey
Image
The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.
John Dewey
Image
Any experience, however, trivial in its first appearance, is capable of assuming an indefinite richness of significance by extending its range of perceived connections.
John Dewey
Image
Education as growth or maturity should be an ever-present process.
John Dewey
Image
The interaction of knowledge and skills with experience is key to learning.
John Dewey
Image
Criticism of the commitment of religion to the supernatural is thus positive in import.
John Dewey
Image
When words do not enter as factors into a shared situation, either overtly or imaginatively, they operate as pure physical stimuli, not as having a meaning or intellectual value. They set activity running in a given groove, but there is no accompanying conscious purpose or meaning.
John Dewey
Image
As long as art is the beauty parlor of civilization, neither art nor civilization is secure.
John Dewey
Image
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
Image
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.
John Dewey
Image
What's in a question, you ask? Everything. It is evoking stimulating response or stultifying inquiry. It is, in essence, the very core of teaching.
John Dewey
Image
In brief, the function of knowledge is to make one experience freely available to other experiences.
John Dewey
Image
Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.
John Dewey
Image
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.
John Dewey
Image
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.
John Dewey