Quote

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

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
Blindly
Unconsciously
Propose
Intend
Meaning
Mean
Things

More quotes by John Dewey

Image
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.
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
Just because life signifies not bare passive existence (supposing there is such a thing), but a way of acting, environment or medium signifies what enters into this activity as a sustaining or frustrating condition.
John Dewey
Image
By reading the characteristic features of any man's castles in the air you can make a shrewd guess as to his underlying desires which are frustrated.
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
Giving and taking of orders modifies actions and results, but does not of itself effect a sharing of purposes, a communication of interests.
John Dewey
Image
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
Image
There is not, in fact, any such thing as the direct influence of one human being on another apart from use of the physical environment as an intermediary. A smile, a frown, a rebuke, a word of warning or encouragement, all involve some physical change. Otherwise, the attitude of one would not get over to alter the attitude of another.
John Dewey
Image
Every living being needs continually renewed, and education is simply the chief process by which renewal occurs.
John Dewey
Image
Criticism of the commitment of religion to the supernatural is thus positive in import.
John Dewey
Image
There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication.
John Dewey
Image
Teachers are the agents through which knowledge and skills are communicated and rules of conduct enforced.
John Dewey
Image
Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
John Dewey
Image
Experience alone cannot deliver to us necessary truths truths completely demonstrated by reason. Its conclusions are particular, not universal.
John Dewey
Image
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
John Dewey
Image
Education has no more serious responsibility than the making of adequate provision for enjoyment of recreative leisure not only for the sake of immediate health, but for the sake of its lasting effect upon the habits of the mind.
John Dewey
Image
Choice is the declaration by self that a certain ideal of self shall be realized.
John Dewey
Image
It has been petrified into a slavery of thought and sentiment, as intolerant superiority on the part of the few and an intolerable burden on the part of the many.
John Dewey
Image
Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.
John Dewey
Image
Intelligence is in constant process of forming, and its retention requires constant alertness in observing consequences, an open-minded will to learn, and courage in readjustment.
John Dewey