Genuine ignorance is… profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas. – John Dewey
The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative. – John Dewey
A person who is trained to consider his actions, to undertake them deliberately, is in so far forth disciplined. Add to this ability a power to endure in an intelligently chosen course in the face of distraction, confusion, and difficulty, and you have the essence of discipline. – John Dewey
Nature is the mother and the habitat of man, even if sometimes a stepmother and an unfriendly home. – John Dewey
History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment. – Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays