The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

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

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

Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?

Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful.

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.

I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me.

If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down.

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

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

I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of some intelligence or some organizing force that set up the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that ultimately generated stars, planets and life.

I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills.

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

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.

I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of some intelligence or some organizing force that set up the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that ultimately generated stars, planets and life.