John Dewey Quotes

1859 – 1952

American philosopher and educational reformer.

“Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality.”

— John Dewey

“Cease conceiving of education as mere preparation for later life, and make it the full meaning of the present life.”

— John Dewey

“Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

— John Dewey

“Only through education can equality of opportunity be anything more than a phrase.”

— John Dewey

“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.”

— John Dewey

“The true antithesis of nature is not art but arbitrary conceit, fantasy, and stereotyped convention.”

— John Dewey

“Colors are the painting; tones are the music.”

— John Dewey

“In art, as in nature and in life, relations are modes of interaction.”

— John Dewey

“To maintain the state of doubt and to carry on systematic and protracted inquiry ― these are the essentials of thinking.”

— John Dewey

“It is a familiar and significant saying that a problem well-put is half-solved.”

— John Dewey

“The contingency of all into which time enters is the source of pathos, comedy, and tragedy.”

— John Dewey

“Individuality is the source of whatever is unpredictable in the world.”

— John Dewey

“The artist in realizing his own individuality reveals potentialities hitherto unrealized.”

— John Dewey

“Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril and no one can wholly predict what will emerge in its place.”

— John Dewey

“But the individual butterfly or earthquake remains just the unique existence which it is. We forget in explaining its occurrence that it is only the occurrence that is explained…”

— John Dewey

“Freedom of thought and of expression are not mere rights to be claimed. They have their roots deep in the existence of individuals as developing careers in time. Their denial and…”

— John Dewey

“Surrender of individuality by the many to someone who is taken to be a superindividual explains the retrograde movement of society.”

— John Dewey

“Form may then be defined as the operation of forces that carry the experience of an event, object, scene, and situation to its own integral fulfillment.”

— John Dewey

“We cannot grasp any idea, any organ of meditation, we cannot possess it in full force, until we have felt and sensed it, as much so as if it were an odor or a color.”

— John Dewey

“When there is genuine artistry in scientific inquiry and philosophic speculation, a thinker proceeds neither by rule nor yet blindly, but by means of meaning that exist…”

— John Dewey

“Works of art express space as opportunity for movement and action.”

— John Dewey

“All the cases in which means and ends are external to one another are non-esthetic.”

— John Dewey

“Artist and perceiver alike begin with what may be called a total seizure, an inclusive qualitative whole not yet articulated, not distinguished into members.”

— John Dewey

More great minds

Martin Luther King Jr.

63 quotes

William Shakespeare

62 quotes

Fyodor Dostoevsky

55 quotes

Abraham Lincoln

54 quotes

Thomas Jefferson

53 quotes

Lord Byron

50 quotes