John Dewey Quotes

Every different social group that I encountered had its different set of rules, so you learn very quickly how to pick up the nuances and change yourself accordingly. When you are not from anywhere, you have to try to find what's universal. You are always trying to fit in.

As a 'parisien d'adoption,' I am only semicognizant of where I may fit at any given time into the French social fabric.

The question of identity has separated from the issue of 'assimilation', having lost much of its drama and become, so to speak, a secular problem.

We are undermining a generation's happiness by depriving them of national identity, religious identity, and gender identity

I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

I've no objection to morality, except that it's obsolete.

It is the office of the school environment to balance the various elements in the social environment, and to see to it that each individual gets an opportunity to escape from the limitations of the social group in which he was born, and to come into living contact with a broader environment.

Weirdly, when I was in drama school my accent probably got stronger because of that sense of identity when you leave home and go to somewhere where there are loads of people from different places. Holding on to being Welsh and where I was from was a real crutch for me.

In the battle for preserving sound social and moral norms, many religious institutions can no longer be counted as allies.

The law often permits what honor prohibits.

I feel so lucky that my high school was right in the middle of Denver, which is one of those sort of segregated towns, with black and white and Hispanic neighborhoods. But the school I went to was right in the middle of the whole thing.

The law functions as formal embodiment of a moral code, not as free-standing substitute for it.

There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though it may not always call itself by that name.

In reality, moral rules are directions for running the human machine. Every moral rule is there to prevent a breakdown, or a strain, or a friction, in the running of that machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations.

I had a hard time in middle school. I was never really quite me until I was 16 or 17, and things like bullying didn't matter anymore.

Laws and rules of conduct are for the state of childhood; education is an emancipation.

Early in school, they called me 'the artist.' When teachers wanted things painted, they called upon me, they called upon 'the artist.' I am not saying that I learned my name, animals can learn their names, I am saying that they learned it.

Our sense of being a person can come from being drawn into a wide social unit; our sense of selfhood can arise through the little ways in which we resist the pull. Our status is backed by the solid buildings of the world, while our sense of personal identity often resides in the cracks

To claim that theft or adultery or lying are "evil" simply reflects our degraded idea of good-—that it has something to do with respect for property, respectability, and sincerity.

Responsibilites and expectations are the basis of guilt and shame and judgement, and they provide the essential framework that promotes performance as the basis for identity and value.

Taboo restrictions are distinct from religious or moral prohibitions. They are not based upon any divine ordinance, but may be said to impose themselves on their own account. They differ from moral prohibitions in that they fall into no system that declares quite generally that certain abstinences must be observed and gives reasons for that necessity.

I went to school, and I remember that you had to do these tests to find out what set you're in - how clever you are. I put down "Kit Harington," and they looked at me like I was completely stupid, and they said, "No, you're Christopher Harington, I'm afraid." It was only then I learnt my actual name. That was kind of a bizarre existential crisis for an 11-year-old to have, but in the end I always stuck with Kit, because I felt that's who I was. I'm not really a "Chris."

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives.

From about the age of 5, I was aware that I didn't fit. I was the black, atheist kid in the all-white, Catholic school run by nuns. I was an anomaly.