If you do a search for inspirational or best quotes on education, you will come across the following by John Dewey:
Education is not preparation for life, but is life itself
One will find this quote is quite popular. John Dewey never said it anywhere in any written work. It is often cited as being from My Pedagogic Creed (1897), but it is not there. Dewey was a prolific writer and one can distill this sentiment in and across many of his written works, but the quote is wrong.
It is a great quote and I am a huge fan of John Dewey, which is why I found it annoying that the quote does not exist. In fact, I spent about 3 hours combing through the internet and searches in digital copies of his writings and could find it nowhere. Finally, I found a dissertation from The University of South Florida, written by Brent Lamons in 2012 (Habit, Education, and the Democratic Way of Life: The Vital Role of Habit in John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education). A footnote on p.73 states:
To put to rest a long-held myth, Dewey never said in any text he wrote, “Education is not preparation for life, but is life itself.” ‖ This quote cannot and will not be found in any Dewey text. He says similar things, but never that exact quote.
This misquote supports my opinion and deep concern that people live bumper-sticker lives.