John Dewey

"Change is inevitable and often good, but abrupt change is confusing."

"Wisdom is not found on dusty shelves. It is found in the active lives of men and women."

"The school has the responsibility of developing in every child those attitudes and capacities which will enable him to progress."

"Human nature is not a finished product, but is continuously reconstructed in living."

"A school system is good only insofar as it renders itself unnecessary."

"The truly creative person is capable of being surprised by his own creations."

"The human world is literally the creation of the values men attach to events."

"Life is the greatest teacher. Experience is the best form of education."

"In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth."

"The child should be enabled to make a natural and easy transition into a broader social world."

"Method is not something that exists by itself. It is effective only in relation to a purpose."

"The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child."

"To philosophize is to make a distinction which cuts right through the center of human interests."

"The demand for certainty is one appropriate to conduct but not to understanding."

"Growth, improvement, and progress are possible only when there is appreciative understanding of what has gone before."

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

"The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning."

"Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another."

"We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience."

"The self is not something ready made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action."

"Education has for its object the formation of character."

"Nature is not something to be conquered or controlled; it is something to participate in."

"The capacity to think of things as connected is the basis of all reasoning."

"Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to appraisal and reconsideration."

"The future is literally in our hands to shape."

"A problem well stated is half solved."

"Thinking is the method of intelligent learning."

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

"The school is primarily a social institution designed to maintain the life of society itself."

"To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life."