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" The environment shapes people's actions. "

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" 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. "

" Reinforcement is being right. "

" 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. "

" I have to tell people that they are not responsible for their behavior. They're not creating it; they're not initiating anything. It's all found somewhere else. That's an awful lot to relinquish. "

" 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. "

" If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. "

" A person who has been punished is not less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment. "

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

" The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down. "

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

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

" Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection? "

" I never really expected to be controversial. "

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

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

" Those few people who do respond to the dire conditions of the future - journalists, environmentalists, behavioral scientists - tend not to be powerful. "

" I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills. "

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

" Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. "

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

" When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it. "

" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "

" I'm very pessimistic. "

" 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. "

" 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. "