A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. Read Summary
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again. Read Summary
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. Read Summary
Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. Read Summary
The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry. Read Summary
Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement. Read Summary
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. Read Summary
What is sought can never produce the seeking. Read Summary
I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed. Read Summary
I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith. Read Summary
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. Read Summary
The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone. Read Summary
A person who has been punished is not less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment. Read Summary
I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is. Read Summary
I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of some intelligence or some organizing force that set up the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that ultimately generated stars, planets and life. Read Summary
Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions. Read Summary
I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me. Read Summary
I never really expected to be controversial. Read Summary
Religions work for their own aggrandizement - strengthen the church and so on - and they use reinforcers of one kind or another to get obedience and so on from their communicants. Read Summary
I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it. Read Summary