B. F. SKINNER

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.

Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.

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.

The environment shapes people's actions.

Reinforcement is being right.

We have not yet seen what man can make of man.

The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry.

Great scientific contributions have been techniques.

I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it.

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.

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.

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.

The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.

I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.

The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned.

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.

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.

I'm very pessimistic.

Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful.

I never really expected to be controversial.

I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.

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.

You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements.