Man lives in a world of surmise, of mystery, of uncertainties.

Meaning of the quote

The quote is saying that people live in a world where there are a lot of things they can only guess about, many mysteries, and many things that are uncertain or unknown. We don't always have all the answers, and there's a lot we have to figure out for ourselves as we go through life.

About John Dewey

John Dewey was an influential American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer of the 20th century. He was a strong advocate for democracy, believing that it should be reflected in education, communication, and civil society. Dewey’s ideas on pragmatism and functional psychology also made him a pioneering figure in these fields.

More about the author

More quotes from John Dewey

Skepticism: the mark and even the pose of the educated mind.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Man is not logical and his intellectual history is a record of mental reserves and compromises. He hangs on to what he can in his old beliefs even when he is compelled to surrender their logical basis.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Without some goals and some efforts to reach it, no man can live.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

We only think when we are confronted with problems.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

By object is meant some element in the complex whole that is defined in abstraction from the whole of which it is a distinction.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Time and memory are true artists; they remould reality nearer to the heart’s desire.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

One lives with so many bad deeds on one’s conscience and some good intentions in one’s heart.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

To me faith means not worrying.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Man lives in a world of surmise, of mystery, of uncertainties.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Nature is the mother and the habitat of man, even if sometimes a stepmother and an unfriendly home.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

Just as a flower which seems beautiful and has color but no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

The belief that all genuine education comes about through experience does not mean that all experiences are genuinely or equally educative.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)

No man’s credit is as good as his money.

John Dewey

American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859-1952)