John Dewey Quotes

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.

We have a stake in one another ... what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

There's no such thing as an independent person.

Independence ... is middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth

We live in an interdependent world. We depend on one another for prosperity.

You cannot just exercise your rights and get away without performing your responsibilities. Understand that it should not be about 'me' but rather 'us.'

The dogs and I are a single thing, and thus we share our interests. With them, I'm bigger and better than I am without them, and vice versa.

We need others for our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Without others we are nothing. Our sense that we are an island, an independent, self-sufficient individual, bears no relation to reality. It is closer to the truth to picture ourself as a cell in the vast body of life, distinct yet intimately bound up with all living beings. We cannot exist without others, and they in turn are affected by everything we do. The idea that it is possible to secure our own welfare while neglecting the welfare of others, or even at the expense of others, is completely unrealistic.

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.

A person is a person through other persons. None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.

We are members one of another; so that you cannot injure or help your neighbor without injuring or helping yourself.

The world may think it idiotic, Nor care at all we're symbiotic, But I will say at once and twice: I find it nice. I find it nice.

Individuals understood in relational terms cannot be conceived as fully separate from their communities. Others in one's community may already be a part of the self. This conception of the person as overlapping in identity with others has normative implications for what constitutes the good of the individual and how that good relates to the good of others. One's relationship with others can form a part of one's good as an individual, such that one can have a compelling interest in the welfare of these others and in one's relationship with them.

We seldom stop to think how many people's lives are entwined with our own. It is a form of selfishness to imagine that every individual can operate on his own or can pull out of the general stream and not be missed.

We are members of one great body. Nature planted in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.

Next to grace, I bet God thinks making us need each other was one of His best ideas.

We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are.

I am because other people are.

No enterprise can exist for itself alone.

There is no self-interest completely unrelated to others' interests. Due to the fundamental interconnectedness which lies at the heart of reality, your interest is also my interest. From this it becomes clear that "my" interest and "your" interest are intimately connected. In a deep sense, they converge.

No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we're alone.

Togetherness, for me, means teamwork. In my business of motion pictures and television entertainment, many minds and skillful hands must collaborate...T he work seeks to comprehend the spiritual and material needs and yearnings of gregarious humanity. It makes us reflect how completely dependent we are upon one another in our social and commercial life.

Each component of the organism, like the individual in the social body, possesses the capacity for enjoyment of the self through sharing with others.

It is, the most beautiful truth in morals that we have no such thing as a distinct or divided interest from our race. In their welfare is ours, and by choosing the broadest paths to effect their happiness we choose the surest and the shortest to our own.