Maxine Greene

"The heart of education is the encounter between persons."

"In the presence of beauty, we recognize what we might become."

"Hope sustained action; action sustains hope."

"To acknowledge our ignorance is the beginning of wisdom."

"The person of courage does not act without fear but acts despite it."

"Connection to others is not optional; it is essential to being human."

"Philosophy is ultimately about learning how to live."

"The greatest gift we can give is our authentic presence."

"Power becomes legitimate only when shared democratically."

"In silence, we sometimes hear what words cannot express."

"The journey matters more than the destination."

"To imagine is to begin to be free."

"The world will not change without our participation in its transformation."

"Success is measured not by what we accumulate but by what we contribute."

"Peace is built through the slow work of justice and reconciliation."

"Every person carries within them the capacity for growth and transformation."

"Imagination is the capacity to imagine things as if they could be otherwise. This is what allows us to create meaning in our lives."

"We have to somehow come awake in the world. The world is too full of pain to live in dreamily."

"The function of imagination is not to make us escape reality, but to help us engage with it more fully."

"Teaching, I have come to believe, is one way of breaking the spell, of waking people up."

"I think of freedom as something that is always in the making, never finished, always dependent on individual humans taking action."

"Social justice is about recognizing the ways people are oppressed and helping them imagine a better world."

"The arts are not decorative add-ons to education. They are central to what it means to be fully human."

"We must nurture people who, when they look around, can imagine things being otherwise and have the courage to act."

"Consciousness itself requires that we be present and attentive to the world around us."

"Literature opens doors to worlds we cannot otherwise access. It expands the boundaries of what we think is possible."

"Teaching is an essentially hopeful endeavor. You teach because you believe people can grow and change."

"The way people feel about their work is central to how they experience their lives."

"We need to educate people to be aware, to be critical, to be thinking about alternatives."

"One cannot be truly awake if one is not attending to one's own experience and the experiences of others."