Dewey, John

"The most educative life is the most interesting life."

"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people have to take for themselves."

"The best thing that we can offer to the universe is our active participation in its ongoing creation."

"Mind is not a substance; it is a function."

"The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated."

"There is no greater ill than the acceptance of meanness and untruthfulness as inevitable."

"The individual only can finally judge the value of their own experience."

"Modern life requires that we think in terms of what the problem is, not in terms of isolated facts."

"All genuine education comes through experience."

"The school system which does not grow out of the deep and immediate concerns of the community has no organic foundation."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge; knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to discover."

"The greatest education is the education of character."

"Art celebrates with peculiar intensity the moments in which the past reinforces the present and opens to a rich and organized future."

"The only true method of philosophy is to try to construct a comprehensive, consistent, and usable theory of the world."

"Individuality is only possible if it emerges from genuine community."

"There is a level of spiritual insight to be gotten in real living."

"The most profound principle of human nature is the desire for personal growth."

"Every conceivable civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces."

"The task of philosophy is to clarify the actual situation in which we find ourselves."

"Art is not the possession of the few who are professionally engaged in producing beauty, but a continuous process of living."

"Human progress has never been achieved by adherence to established doctrines and social institutions."

"The ability to perceive the universal significance of the particular is the essence of poetry."

"Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment the treasurer of a wise man."

"We must conceive of poetry as having a larger meaning—as the expression of all deeply human interests."

"Science is a social activity; scientists work in laboratories that are part of a larger human community."

"The demand for constant expansion is built into the very conditions of the human constitution."

"We live not just in a physical world but in a world of meanings."

"Interest is the most powerful lever for directing attention."

"The intelligent person is one who can adjust to new conditions and benefit from experience."

"Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature."