John Dewey Quotes

No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

No one tells me what to think. I think for me.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour perfectly hamonized; it is true to life.

… the third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

Self-reliance leads to intellectual independence. Each man must think for himself, must train the mind to think, must habituate the soul to observe and analyze.

People who love literature have at least part of their minds immune from indoctrination. If you read, you can learn to think for yourself.

Thinking for yourself - that's scarier than any devil image.

The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language.

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel that what I'm thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!

I intend to judge things for myself; to judge wrongly, I think, is more honorable than not to judge at all.

I do hope that young men and women will start to think for themselves and start to take responsibility for their own thoughts.

Every man can educate himself. It's shameful to put one's mind into the hands of those whom you wouldn't entrust with your money. Dare to think for yourself.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself.

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.

If you're not thinking for yourself, then you're following-not leading.

We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what "he" thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally - that is, for himself - which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.

No thought, no idea, can possibly be conveyed as an idea from one person to another. When it is told it is to the one to whom it is told another fact, not an idea. The communication may stimulate the other person to realize the question for himself and to think out a like idea, or it may smother his intellectual interest and suppress his dawning effort at thought. But what he directly gets cannot be an idea. Only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way out, does he think.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself.

Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

A true teacher doesn't teach you to think like him, but to think without him.

Determine to do some thinking for yourself. Don't live entirely upon the thoughts of others. Don't be an automaton.