John Dewey Quotes
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, the most influential figure of the second generation of pragmatist philosophy and one of the most influential American thinkers of the 20th century. His philosophy of education, set out in works including Democracy and Education and Experience and Education, transformed schooling in the United States and abroad through its emphasis on learning by doing and on the school as a model of democratic life. The quotes below are attributed to John Dewey, organized by topic.
Browse John Dewey by topic
John Dewey on Freedom
-
“The American Background , Freedom and Culture (1939)”
Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies.
John Dewey on Knowledge
-
Attributed to John Dewey:
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
-
Attributed to John Dewey:
“Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.”
-
Attributed to John Dewey:
“We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.”
-
“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.”
The Quest for Certainty (1929), Ch. XI -
“The Need of an Industrial Education in an Industrial Democracy,” Manual Training and Vocational Education17 (1916); also Middle Works 10: 137-143.”
It is no accident that all democracies have put a high estimate upon education; that schooling has been their first care and enduring charge. Only through education can equality of opportunity be anything more than a phrase. Accidental inequalities of birth, wealth, and learning are always tending to restrict the opportunities of some as compared with those of others. Only free and continued educa -
“The Quest for Certainty (1929), Ch. XI”
Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. -
“Democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail.”
Democracy and Human Nature , Freedom and Culture (1939)
John Dewey on Mind
-
Attributed to John Dewey:
“The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alteration of old beliefs.”
-
Attributed to John Dewey:
“To be playful and serious at the same time is possible, and it defines the ideal mental condition.”
-
“While they denounce as subversive anarchy signs of independent thought, of thinking for themselves on the part of others lest such thought disturb the conditions by which they profit, they think quite literally for themselves, that is of themselves.”
Human Nature and Conduct (1921) Part 1 Section IV.
John Dewey on Nature
-
“Human Nature and Conduct (1921) Part 1 Section IV.”
While they denounce as subversive anarchy signs of independent thought, of thinking for themselves on the part of others lest such thought disturb the conditions by which they profit, they think quite literally for themselves, that is of themselves. -
“Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies.”
The American Background , Freedom and Culture (1939)
John Dewey on Politics
-
“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”
The Need of an Industrial Education in an Industrial Democracy,” Manual Training and Vocational Education17 (1916); also Middle Works 10: 137-143. -
“As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.”
Quoted in John Dewey and American Democracy by Robert Westbrook (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 440; cited in Understanding Power (2002) by Noam Chomsky , ch. 9, footnote 16; originally from "The Need for a New Party" (1931) by John Dewey, Later Works 6, p. 163. (Via Westbrook.)
John Dewey on Time
-
Attributed to John Dewey:
“Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart's desire.”
John Dewey on Virtue
-
“Self-Realization as the Moral Ideal (1893)”
We have to a considerable extent, given up thinking of this life as merely a preparation for another life. Very largely, however, we think of some parts of this life as merely preparatory to other later stages of it. It is so very largely as to the process of education; and if I were asked to name the most needed of all reforms in the spirit of education, I should say: ' Cease conceiving of educat
Things actually not said by John Dewey
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as John Dewey but are in fact from someone else. Did John Dewey say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
-
Did John Dewey say this? No.
“The only way to abolish war is to make peace heroic.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: James Hinton , Philosophy and Religion: Selections from the Manuscripts of the Late James Hinton , ed. Caroline Haddon, (2nd ed., London: 1884), p. 267 . | Widely misattributed on the internet to Dewey, who actually attributes it to Hinton in Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psych
-
Did John Dewey say this? No.
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is a paraphrase of an idea that Dewey expressed using other words in My Pedagogic Creed (1897) and Democracy and Education (1916); it is widely misattributed to Dewey as a quotation. | Cf. James William Norman, A Comparison of Tendencies in Secondary Education in England and the United States (
-
Did John Dewey say this? No.
“To free one's mind of chains is to free it of the care of what is acceptable or viewed so by society, this is when true freedom is discovered.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This text is commentary (not a quotation of Dewey) that was added to this page at 05:36, 2 February 2009 (UTC) ; the text was later removed from this page but not before being misattributed to Dewey on several web sites, including in a sermon given at an Episcopal church . The statement was commenti