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

More quotes by John Dewey

Image
Since growth is the characteristic of life, education is all one with growing it has no end beyond itself. The criterion of the value of school education is the extent in which it creates a desire for continuous growth and supplies means for making the desire effective in fact.
John Dewey
Image
Like the soil, mind is fertilized while it lies fallow, until a new burst of bloom ensues.
John Dewey
Image
A child might be made to bow every time he met a certain person by pressure on his neck muscles, and bowing would finally become automatic. It would not, however, be an act of recognition or deference on his part, till he did it with a certain end in view - as having a certain meaning.
John Dewey
Image
Thought is impossible without words.
John Dewey
Image
I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context.
John Dewey
Image
Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.
John Dewey
Image
The intellectual content of religions has always finally adapted itself to scientific and social conditions after they have become clear.... For this reason I do not think that those who are concerned about the future of a religious attitude should trouble themselves about the conflict of science with traditional doctrines.
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
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
John Dewey
Image
Everything which bars freedom and fullness of communication sets up barriers that divide human beings into sets and cliques, into antagonistic sects and factions, and thereby undermines the democratic way of life.
John Dewey
Image
The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.
John Dewey
Image
Democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail.
John Dewey
Image
If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.
John Dewey
Image
Only in education, never in the life of farmer, sailor, merchant, physician, or laboratory experimenter, does knowledge mean primarily a store of information aloof from doing.
John Dewey
Image
A good aim surveys the present state of experience of pupils, and forming a tentative plan of treatment, keeps the plan constantly in view and yet modifies it as conditions develop. The aim, in short, is experimental, and hence constantly growing as it is tested in action.
John Dewey
Image
Education is life itself.
John Dewey
Image
What holds for adults holds even more for children, sensitive and conscious of differences. I certainly hope that the Board of Education will think very, very seriously before it introduces this division and antagonism in our public schools.
John Dewey
Image
most notable distinction between living and inanimate beings is that the former maintain themselves by renewal.
John Dewey
Image
There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing.
John Dewey
Image
Knowledge falters when imagination clips its wings or fears to use them.
John Dewey