John Dewey Quotes

A response is not just a re-action, a protest, as it were, against being disturbed; it is, as the word indicates, an answer. It meets the stimulus, and corresponds with it.

People don’t pay much attention to anything unless you give them reason to

The cell never acts; it reacts.

Experiment has a stimulus which withers its fear.

I'll be Pavlov, you be the dog.

The truth is, Pavlov's dog trained Pavlov to ring this bell just before the dog salivated.

The word book acted as a transient stimulus

It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park [. . .] and nobody by to perceive them. [...] The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees therefore are in the garden [. . .] no longer than while there is somebody by to perceive them.

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.

In fact, without a specification of a creature's goals, the very idea of intelligence is meaningless. A toadstool could be given a genius award for accomplishing with pinpoint precision and unerring reliability, the feat of sitting exactly where it is sitting. Nothing would prevent us from agreeing with the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn that rocks are smarter than cats because rocks have the sense to go away when you kick them.

Adrian was easily distractible by wacky topics and shiny objects.

There is no Love greater than Love with no object. For then you, yourself, have become love, itself.

Part of the reason we're all committed to coordinated stimulus is we want to stimulate the global economy. We're in a global economy, not just our national economies.p

Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided.

Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things.

Short term, the most important thing is to put people back to work ... If they're working, that means they're paying taxes, that means that they're buying goods and services - and the economy, instead of being on a downward spiral, starts back up on an upward spiral.

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

The Text is not a definitive object.

Not a stone but has its history.

Mindfulness is a pause - the space between stimulus and response: that's where choice lies.

I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth.

The mind generally takes up various objects, runs into all sorts of things. That is the lower state. There is a higher state of the mind, when it takes up one object and excludes all others.

Men are naturally lazy, and require some great stimulus to goad their flagging ambitions and enable them to overcome the inertia which comes from ease and the consciousness of inherited wealth. Whatever lessens in a young man the feeling that he must make his way in the world cripples his chance of success. Poverty has ever been the priceless spur that has goaded man up to his own loaf.

To dispose a soul to action we must upset its equilibrium.