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121 " it is not exact or relevant to say “I experience” or “I think.” “It” experiences or is experienced, “it” thinks or is thought, is a juster phrase. Experience, a serial course of affairs with their own characteristic properties and relationships, occurs, happens, and is what it is. Among and within these occurrences, not outside of them nor underlying them, are those events which are denominated selves. "
― John Dewey , Experience and Nature
122 " Holding the mind to a subject is like holding a ship to its course; it implies constant change of place combined with unity of direction. "
― John Dewey
123 " 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
124 " Let us say, in a word, that the correlation between the laws of mathematics and of physics is the evidence of the rational character of nature. Nature may be reduced to motions; and motions can be understood only as force, activity. But the laws which connect motions are fundamentally mathematical laws,- laws of reason. Hence force, activity, can be understood only as rational, as spiritual. Nature is thus seen to mean Activity, and Activity is seen to mean Intelligence "
― John Dewey , Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding A Critical Exposition
125 " It is mere ignorance that leads then to the supposition that connection of art and esthetic perception with experience signifies a lowering of their significance and dignity. "
― John Dewey , Art as Experience
126 " Experience in the degree in which it is experience is heightened vitality. Instead of signifying being shut up within one’s own private feelings and sensations, it signifies active and alert commerce with the world; at its height it signifies complete interpenetration of self and the world of objects and events. "
127 " The "matter" of materialists and the "spirit" of idealists is a creature similar to the constitution of the United States in the minds of unimaginative persons. Obviously the real constitution is certain basic relationships among the activities of the citizens of the country; it is a property or phase of these processes, so connected with them as to influence their rate and direction of change. But by literalists it is often conceived of as something external to them; in itself fixed, a rigid framework to which all changes must accommodate themselves. "
128 " 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. "
129 " The very essence of civilized culture is that we deliberately erect monuments and memorials, lest we forget... "
130 " 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. "
131 " Professed scientific philosophers have been wont to employ the remoter and refinished products of science in ways which deny, discount or pervert the obvious and immediate facts of gross experience, unmindful that thereby philosophy itself commits suicide. "
132 " In an experience, flow is from something to something. As one part leads into another and as one part carries on what went before, each gains distinctness in itself. The enduring whole is diversified by successive phases that are emphases of its varied colors. "
133 " Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles. "
134 " Zıt yönde bir aşırılığa gidilerek, mevcut koşullar altında her ne kadar doğal görünse de yine de talihsiz olan bir şekilde, eğitimin kullanacağı materyali şimdideki deneyimden seçmesi ve öğrencinin şimdinin ve geleceğin sorunları ile baş edebilmesini sağlaması biçimindeki geçerli düşünce, çoğu zaman ilerlemeci anlayışa sahip okulların geçmişi büyük ölçüde yok sayabileceği düşüncesine dönüştürülmüştür. Eğer şimdi, geçmişten koparılabilecek olsaydı bu çıkarım geçerli olurdu. Ancak şimdiyi anlamakta kullanılabilecek tek yol geçmişin başarılarıdır. Tıpkı bireyin kendisini içerisinde bulduğu koşulları anlamak için belleğine yönelmek zorunda olması gibi, şimdideki toplumsal yaşamın sorunları geçmişle o kadar yakın ve doğrudan bir ilişki içerisindedir ki; öğrenciler bu sorunların geçmişte yatan kökenlerini incelemeden ne bu sorunları anlayabilirler ne de en iyi çözüm yollarını bulabilirler. Başka bir deyişle, öğrenmenin amaçlarının gelecekte ve kullanması gereken materyalin de şimdide olduğu şeklindeki geçerli prensip, ancak ve ancak şimdideki deneyimin geriye doğru genişletilebildiği oranda hayata geçirilebilir. Deneyim, geleceğe doğru ancak geçmişe doğru da genişlediği sürece genişleyebilir. "
― John Dewey , DENEYİM VE EĞİTİM
135 " I question whether the spiritual life does not get its surest and most ample guarantees when it is learned that the laws and conditions of righteousness are implicated in the working processes of the universe; when it is found that man in his conscious struggles, in his doubts, temptations and defeats, in his aspirations and successes, is moved on and buoyed up by the forces which have developed nature. "
136 " Genuine ignorance is more profitable because likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness; while ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with a varnish waterproof to new ideas. "
― John Dewey , The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Complete Works PergamonMedia (Highlights of World Literature)
137 " Not perfection as a final goal, but the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of living. "
138 " Education is not preparation for life. Education is life itself. "
139 " Education is not preparation for life; it is life itself. "
140 " Art is the living and concrete proof that man is capable of restoring consciously, and thus on the plane of meaning, the union of sense, need, impulse and action characteristic of the live creature. The intervention of consciousness adds regulation, power of selection, and redisposition. Thus it varies the arts in ways without end. But its intervention also leads in time to the idea of art as a conscious idea—the greatest intellectual achievement in the history of humanity. "