“I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.”

The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.

A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.

Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli

When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

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

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

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

A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.

A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.

A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.

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.

Courage is the capacity to meet the anxiety which arises as one achieves freedom. It is the willingness to differentiate, to move from the protecting realms of parental dependence to new levels of freedom and integration.

Anxiety is essential to the human condition. The confrontation with anxiety can relieve us from boredom, sharpen the sensitivity and assure the presence of tension that is necessary to preserve human existence.

It is well to remind ourselves that anxiety signifies a conflict, and so long as a conflict is going on, a constructive solution is possible.

The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.

There is some evidence, for example, that those who enter the death-related professions (soldiers, doctors, priests, and morticians) may in part be motivated by a need to obtain control over death anxiety.

The death anxiety of many people is fueled … by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential.

…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.

Grandparents are given a second chance to enjoy parenthood with fewer of its tribulations and anxieties.