Quote Atlassourced quotes & context
Source identified
The thinker has to decide, to choose; and there is always a risk.
Read & copy the quotation
“The thinker has to decide, to choose; and there is always a risk.”

John Dewey

Download image (JPG)

Source
How We Think
Date
1910
Meaning

Meaning of “The thinker has to decide, to choose; and…”

Choosing among plausible interpretations necessarily involves uncertainty, so sound thinking requires a cautious selection that remains open to confirmation or correction by later events.

Source context

Where does it come from?

How We Think (1910), Chapter VIII, “Judgment: The Interpretation of Facts,” section 1, printed page 106, Project Gutenberg #37423. Dewey says the thinker must choose among candidate meanings for a perplexing situation and therefore accepts risk; the prudent thinker selects warily and remains answerable to later confirmation or frustration. This is part of Dewey’s historical educational/logical account of reflective judgment, not a modern decision-science finding.

Primary / edition source ↗

Customize your imageTen designs · Square or portrait · Preview and share
Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

Courage Quotes About Acting Despite FearDecisionDeepFailureFearInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLifeLife LessonsMindMotivation For LifeResponsibilityShortStrengthThinking Quotes About Reasoning, Reflection & JudgmentThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellReasonRisk
Related quotations

Continue through nearby ideas

Source identified
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Read & copy

“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.”

Thomas Paine · Common Sense · 1776
Meaning & context

Custom can disguise error by making the familiar feel legitimate; critical judgment requires re-examining practices that have escaped scrutiny through repetition.

Source details

Common Sense (1776), Introduction. The represented opening sentence is verified in Project Gutenberg #147 and the validated scan-backed Wikisource transcription; Paine argues that familiarity can make a wrong practice appear right before public argument unsettles the custom.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Nothing noble can be performed without danger.
Read & copy

“Nothing noble can be performed without danger.”

Michel de Montaigne · Essays of Montaigne — Book I · 1580
Meaning & context

Avoiding every danger can also prevent worthy action; prudence needs to distinguish reckless exposure from risks that meaningful conduct sometimes requires.

Source details

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXIII, ‘Various Events from the Same Counsel,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 04 #3584 / Complete Essays #3600. Montaigne argues that excessive security-minded distrust can destroy the courage required for noble action; the reviewed direct evidence is the matching Wikisource chapter transcription.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.
Read & copy

“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”

William James · The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy · 1897
Meaning & context

James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.

Source details

The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
Happy is the man who learns from the misfortunes of others.
Read & copy

“Happy is the man who learns from the misfortunes of others.”

Aesop · Aesop’s Fables — The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass · Townsend translation
Meaning & context

Other people’s failures can become instruction when we pay attention to consequences before repeating the same mistake ourselves.

Source details

Moral printed after “The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass”; the fox changes his conduct after observing the ass’s fate.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
The judgment when formed is a decision; it closes (or concludes) the question at issue.
Read & copy

“The judgment when formed is a decision; it closes (or concludes) the question at issue.”

John Dewey · How We Think · 1910
Meaning & context

Reflective judgment is not endless suspension: Dewey describes it as the point at which a particular uncertainty is concluded in a way that can also inform later judgments.

Source details

How We Think (1910), Chapter VIII, “Judgment: The Interpretation of Facts,” section 1, printed page 107, Project Gutenberg #37423. Dewey identifies a formed judgment as a decision that closes the issue at hand and may help establish a method for analogous later cases. The statement belongs to his early-twentieth-century theory of reflective judgment rather than current clinical, neuroscientific or experimentally settled cognitive science.

↓ Download image (JPG)

Source identified
The better part of valour is discretion.
Read & copy

“The better part of valour is discretion.”

William Shakespeare · Henry IV, Part 1 · c. 1597
Voice: Fictional character · Falstaff
Meaning & context

Courage is balanced with judgment here: avoiding a needless danger can sometimes be wiser than performing bravery for appearance.

Source details

Henry IV, Part 1, Act V Scene 4; reviewed against the 1917 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Samuel B. Hemingway, printed page 110 / scan leaf 124. Falstaff says 'The better part of valour is discretion' after counterfeiting death during the battle and immediately boasts that this discretion saved his life. It remains comic fictional self-justification rather than a universal rule for courage or risk.

↓ Download image (JPG)