The essence of creativity is figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you already think.

Apollo without Dionysus may indeed be a well-informed, good citizen but he's a dull fellow. He may even be 'cultured,' in the sense one often gets from traditionalist writings in education. . . . But without Dionysus he will never make and remake a culture.

We are storytelling creatures, and as children we acquire language to tell those stories that we have inside us.

We are only now on the threshold of knowing the range of the educability of man-the perfectibility of man. We have never addressed ourselves to this problem before.

We need to conceive of ourselves as "agents" impelled by self-generated intentions.

It is sentimentalism to assume that the teaching of life can always be fitted to the child's interests, just as it is empty formalism to force the child to parrot the formulas of adult society. Interests can be created and stimulated.

We carry with us habits of thought and taste fostered in some nearly forgotten classroom by a certain teacher.