A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.

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.

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.

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.

An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.

The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.

It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.

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 speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.

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

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

The problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all.

A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.

Something doing every minute' may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.

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

I'm very pessimistic.

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

To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.