John Dewey Quotes

Each generation is inclined to educate its young so as to get along in the present world instead of with a view to the proper end of education: the promotion of the best possible realization of humanity as humanity.

Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.

If education is to develop human nature so that it may attain the object of its being, it must involve the exercise of judgment.

The end of education is to see men made whole, both in competence and in conscience.

Education is not solely about earning a great living. It means living a great life.

Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities.

The fundamental purpose of schools is to grow adults.

Education from the lowest to the highest form must have for its object the training of the individual so that, in seeking the fullest satisfaction of his own nature, he will harmoniously perform his function as a member of a corporate society.

Is not education the art of drawing out full manhood of the children under training?

A liberal education is that which aims to develop faculty without ulterior views of profession or other means of gaining a livelihood. It considers man an end in himself and not an instrument whereby something is to be wrought. Its ideal is human perfection.

Parents usually educate their children merely in such a manner than however bad the world may be, they may adapt themselves to its present conditions. But they ought to give them an education so much better than this, that a better condition of things may thereby be brought about by the future.

Education in the true sense is helping the individual to be mature and free, to flower greatly in love and goodness. That is what we should be interested in, and not in shaping the child according to some idealistic pattern.

The aim of education should not be to teach how to use human energies to improve the environment, for we are finally beginning to realize that the cornerstone of education is the development of the human personality, and that in this regard education is of immediate importance for the salvation of mankind.

There is a perfect ant, a perfect bee, but man is perpetually unfinished...Moreover, the incurable unfinishedness keeps man perpetually immature, perpetually capable of learning and growing.

on first priority in design consideration is the full realization of individual potential in order to reach the second derivative full realization for all individuals

Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining.

A university is not, primarily, a place in which to learn how to make a living; it is a place in which to learn how to be more fully a human being, how to draw upon one's resources, how to discipline the mind and expand the imagination; how to make some sense out of the big world we will shortly be thrown into.

Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.

What then is the purpose of national education? Rather than devise complex theoretical interpretations, it is better to start by looking to the lovely child who sits on your knee and ask yourself: What can I do to assure this child will be able to lead the happiest life possible?

I insist that the object of all true education is not to make men carpenters, it is to make carpenters men.

All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent parents should accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves.

Problem-posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming.

My humanity, in common with all of God's children, gives the greatest flight to my full range of my possibilities.

Embryos turn into babies; buds turn into blossoms; acorns turn into oak trees. The same programming that exists in them exists in each of us - to manifest our highest potential. What is the difference between those things and us? That we can say no...So today, say yes.

By education, I mean an all-round drawing of the best in child and man in body, mind and spirit.