“It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.”

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.

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.

The weakest man is the one who is able to correct his moral defects, but doesn’t take action.

Poetry is an act of peace.

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

Love is cheering and sharing and compassion and giving and receiving. Love is an action thing more than a word thing, that brings comfort or joy or relief to anyone or anything.

We are born to action; and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first.

Anything lost, can be found again, except for time wasted. A vision without action is merely a dream. Action, it’s the grind, it’s the hustle, it’s the persistence.

Whites would accuse you of causing trouble when all you were doing was acting like a normal human being instead of cringing.

A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided.