B.F. Skinner

The experimental analysis of behavior is a natural science, a branch of biology.

I deny that I have ever attacked anyone's dignity. I have attacked the concept of dignity as a causal agent.

The study of human behavior is not an attempt to explain away human dignity, but to clarify the conditions under which human beings can achieve their greatest potential.

The consequences of behavior determine the behavior.

We can't have a science of behavior if we insist that behavior is not determined.

The fact that people are happy, that they feel free, that they do what they want to do, is not a guarantee that they are behaving effectively or that they are doing what is best for them.

The free and happy individual is a myth.

The ideal of a free man is not a man who is free from control, but a man who is controlled by himself.

We are beginning to see that the problem is not to free men, but to design the kind of culture in which they will be naturally good.

The organism is not an empty organism, but a very complex system.

The world is not a place for self-expression, but for self-control.

The future of man depends on the control of human behavior.

We cannot prove that a man is free, but we can prove that he is not.

The struggle for freedom is not a struggle for independence from control, but for control by oneself.

The experimental analysis of behavior has shown that the traditional concept of 'inner man' is a fiction.

The question is not whether man is free, but whether he can be made free.

The truth is, we are all controlled by the world in which we live.

We do not act because we are free; we are free because we act.

The environment is not something we passively react to; it is something we actively create.

The ultimate aim of the science of behavior is to understand and explain human behavior.