“The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.”

We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.

Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.

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

Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.

Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.

The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.

We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

Men build society and society builds men.

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

Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.

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

…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.

I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.

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.

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.

Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women.

Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness.

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.