To be born, to live and to die is merely to change forms... And what does one form matter any more than another?... Each form has its own sort of happiness and unhappiness. From the elephant down to the flea... from the flea down to the sensitive and living molecule which is the origin of all, there is not a speck in the whole of nature that does not feel pain or pleasure.
Interpretation
Life involves a continuous transformation of forms, each experiencing its own share of joy and suffering.
This quote by John Dewey suggests that the cycle of being born, living, and dying is simply a transformation of existence rather than a linear progression. It emphasizes that every form of life, regardless of its complexity, experiences happiness and unhappiness, highlighting the interconnectedness of all living things in the natural world and their shared capacity for feeling pain and pleasure.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion on the interconnectedness of all living things during a philosophy class.
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
It science involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible.
For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against other ‘isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities.
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.
The earth has everything for all human needs, but nothing for his greed.
When the king asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied: _x000D_ _x000D_ The same as you do when you infest the whole world;_x000D_ _x000D_ but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber,_x000D_ _x000D_ and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor.
Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.
By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, and what to those we give, to Jove is lent.
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