Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden, and must be wrested from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry.

Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. Without some goals and some efforts to reach it, no man can live. Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

One can think effectively only when one is willing to endure suspense and to undergo the trouble of searching.

I believe that the community's duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty. By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move.

Complete adaptation to environment means death. The essential point in all response is the desire to control environment.

As societies become more complex in structure and resources, the need of formal or intentional teaching and learning increases.

One of the saddest things about US education is that the wisdom of our most successful teachers is lost to the profession when they retire.