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

But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.

Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.

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

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.

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.