"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. "
- B.F. Skinner
"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."
"A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process."
"Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten."
"Why did colleges make their students take examinations, and why did they give grade? What did a grade really mean? When a student "studied" did he do anything more than read and think-- or was there s..."
"The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man."
"A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment."
"Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeat..."
"No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out."
"At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved."