Latest John Dewey Quotes from Interviews

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• There is no common understanding, and no community life. But in a shared activity, each person refers what he is doing to what the other is doing and vice-versa.

  John Dewey

  Community, Understanding, Vices

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.26, 谷月社

• To pull at a rope at which others happen to be pulling is not a shared or conjoint activity, unless the pulling is done with knowledge that others are pulling and for the sake of either helping or hindering what they are doing.

  John Dewey

  Sake, Rope, Done

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.34, Courier Corporation

• To have an idea of a thing is not just to get certain sensations from it. It is to be able to respond to the thing in view of its place in an inclusive scheme of action; it is to foresee the drift and probable consequence of the action of the thing upon us and of our action upon it.

  John Dewey

  Views, Ideas, Our Actions

  John Dewey, Jo Ann Boydston, Sidney Hook (2008). “The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Volume 9: 1916, Democracy and Education”, p.35, SIU Press

• All of us have many habits of whose import we are quite unaware, since they were formed without our knowing what we were about. Consequently they possess us, rather than we them. They move us; they control us. Unless we become aware of what they accomplish, and pass judgment upon the worth of the result, we do not control them.

  John Dewey

  Moving, Knowing, Judgment

  John Dewey, (2013). “Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education”, p.38, Read Books Ltd

• A child might be made to bow every time he met a certain person by pressure on his neck muscles, and bowing would finally become automatic. It would not, however, be an act of recognition or deference on his part, till he did it with a certain end in view - as having a certain meaning.

  John Dewey

  Children, Views, Might

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.34, Courier Corporation

• When the child sees the parent looking for something, it is as natural for it also to look for the object and to give it over when it finds it, as it was, under other circumstances, to receive it. Multiply such an instance by the thousand details of daily intercourse, and one has a picture of the most permanent and enduring method of giving direction to the activities of the young.

  John Dewey

  Children, Giving, Parent

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.24, 谷月社

• When things have a meaning for us, we mean (intend, propose) what we do: when they do not, we act blindly, unconsciously, unintelligently.

  John Dewey

  Mean, Propose

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.25, 谷月社

• Where there is giving there must be taking.

  John Dewey

  Giving

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.24, 谷月社

• If a person cannot foresee the consequences of his act, and is not capable of understanding what he is told about its outcome by those with more experience, it is impossible for him to guide his act intelligently. In such a state, every act is alike to him.

  John Dewey

  Understanding, Outcomes, Impossible

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.23, 谷月社

• There is not, in fact, any such thing as the direct influence of one human being on another apart from use of the physical environment as an intermediary. A smile, a frown, a rebuke, a word of warning or encouragement, all involve some physical change. Otherwise, the attitude of one would not get over to alter the attitude of another.

  John Dewey

  Encouragement, Attitude, Facts

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.32, Courier Corporation

• A man can be prevented from breaking into other persons' houses by shutting him up, but shutting him up may not alter his disposition to commit burglary.

  John Dewey

  Men, House, May

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.23, 谷月社

• When others are not doing what we would like them to or are threatening disobedience, we are most conscious of the need of controlling them and of the influences by which they are controlled.

  John Dewey

  Needs, Influence, Threatening

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.31, Courier Corporation

• A child may have to be snatched with roughness away from a fire so that he shall not be burnt.

  John Dewey

  Children, Fire, May

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.23, 谷月社

• Those engaged in directing the actions of others are always in danger of overlooking the importance of the sequential development of those they direct.

  John Dewey

  Development, Action, Danger

  John Dewey, (2013). “Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education”, p.35, Read Books Ltd

• Adults are naturally most conscious of directing the conduct of others when they are immediately aiming so to do. As a rule, they have such an aim consciously when they find themselves resisted; when others are doing things they do not wish them to do. But the more permanent and influential modes of control are those which operate from moment to moment continuously without such deliberate intention on our part.

  John Dewey

  Wish, Adults, Influential

• Even when a person is frightened by threats into doing something, the threats work only because the person has an instinct of fear. If he has not, or if, though having it, it is under his own control, the threat has no more influence upon him than light has in causing a person to see who has no eyes.

  John Dewey

  Eye, Light, Influence

  John Dewey (0101). “Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education”, p.25, Prabhat Prakashan

• All direction is but re-direction; it shifts the activities already going on into another channel. Unless one is cognizant of the energies which are already in operation, one's attempts at direction will almost surely go amiss.

  John Dewey

  Energy, Operations, Activity

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.30, Courier Corporation

• If the eyes are open and there is light, seeing occurs; the stimulus is but a condition of the fulfillment of the proper function of the organ, not an outside interruption. To some extent, then, all direction or control is a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully what some organ is already tending to do.

  John Dewey

  Eye, Light, Function

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.21, 谷月社

• Adequate control means that the successive acts are brought into a continuous order; each act not only meets its immediate stimulus but helps the acts which follow.

  John Dewey

  Mean, Order, Adequate

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.29, Courier Corporation

• 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.

  John Dewey

  Answers, Action, Stimulus

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.29, Courier Corporation

• Individuals are certainly interested, at times, in having their own way, and their own way may go contrary to the ways of others. But they are also interested, and chiefly interested upon the whole, in entering into the activities of others and taking part in conjoint and cooperative doings. Otherwise, no such thing as a community would be possible.

  John Dewey

  Community, Entering, May

  John Dewey (2012). “Democracy and Education”, p.28, Courier Corporation

• In general, every stimulus directs activity. It does not simply excite it or stir it up, but directs it toward an object.

  John Dewey

  Doe, Stimulus, Objects

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education: Top American Authors”, p.21, 谷月社

• By doing his share in the associated activity, the individual appropriates the purpose which actuates it, becomes familiar with its methods and subject matters, acquires needed skill, and is saturated with its emotional spirit.

  John Dewey

  Emotional, Skills, Matter

  John Dewey, (2013). “Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education”, p.30, Read Books Ltd

• Of these three words, direction, control, and guidance, the last best conveys the idea of assisting through cooperation the natural capacities of the individuals guided; control conveys rather the notion of an energy brought to bear from without and meeting some resistance from the one controlled; direction is a more neutral term and suggests the fact that the active tendencies of those directed are led in a certain continuous course, instead of dispersing aimlessly.

  John Dewey

  Ideas, Three, Lasts

• One code prevails in the family; another, on the street; a third, in the workshop or store; a fourth, in the religious association. As a person passes from one of the environments to another, he is subjected to antagonistic pulls, and is in danger of being split into a being having different standards of judgment and emotion for different occasions. This danger imposes upon the school a steadying and integrating office.

  John Dewey

  Religious, School, Office

  John Dewey, (2013). “Democracy and Education - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education”, p.30, Read Books Ltd