How We Think Quotes

“Every one has experienced how learning an appropriate name for what was dim and vague cleared up and crystallized the whole matter. Some meaning seems distinct almost within reach, but is elusive; it refuses to condense into definite form; the attaching of a word somehow (just how, it is almost impossible to say) puts limits around the meaning, draws it out from the void, makes it stand out as an entity on its own account.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“wonder is the mother of all science.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends, constitutes reflective thought… It is a conscious and voluntary effort to establish belief upon a firm basis of reasons.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“it is of the highest concernment that care should be taken of its conduct is a moderate statement. While the power of thought frees us from servile subjection to instinct, appetite, and routine, it also brings with it the occasion and possibility of error and mistake. In elevating us above the brute, it opens to us the possibility of failures to which the animal, limited to instinct, cannot sink.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“Whole object of intellectual education is formation of logical disposition”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“Education is the development of all those capacities in the individual which will enable him to control his environment and fulfil his responsibilities.”
― John Dewy, How We Think

“In object lessons in elementary education and in laboratory instruction in higher education, the subject is often so treated that the student fails to "see the forest on account of the trees.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“Reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a consequence—a consecutive ordering in such a way that each determines the next as its proper outcome, while each in turn leans back on its predecessors.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“The very essence of civilized culture is that we deliberately erect monuments and memorials, lest we forget...”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“No words are oftener on our lips than thinking and thought. So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“hear you don't believe I know enough to hold office. I wish you to understand that I am thinking about something or other most of the time.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles.”
― John Dewey, How We Think

“Aversion to novelty is fatal to progress.”
― John Dewey, How We Think