Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies. - John Dewey

The ideal of using the present simply to get ready for the future contradicts itself... We always live at the time we live and not at some other time, and only by extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience are we prepared for doing the same thing in the future. This is the only preparation which in the long run amounts to anything.

This intelligence-testing business reminds me of the way they used to weigh hogs in Texas. They would get a long plank, put it over a cross-bar, and somehow tie the hog on one end of the plank. They'd search all around till they found a stone that would balance the weight of the hog and they'd put that on the other end of the plank. Then they'd guess the weight of the stone.

The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important.