Birthday Collection

Born on March 20th

Discover quotes and deep life insights from authors, creators, and leaders born on March 20th. Enjoy their wisdom and share their quotes.

Quotes by Authors Born Today (284)

"The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one. A Stanford study showed that those who saw a photo of their future self made smarter financial decisions."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Technology

"I have little shame, no dignity - all in the name of a better cause."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Wisdom

"I was what they call 'skinny fat' - a body that resembled a python after swallowing a goat."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Motivation

"It's sort of my job to feel good."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Motivation

"I tried the paleo diet, which is the caveman diet - lots of meat. And I tried the calorie restriction diet: The idea is that if you eat very, very little - if you're on the verge of starvation, you will live a very long time, whether or not you want to, of course."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Wisdom

"I was very good at sitting. But I just read so much research about how horrible sitting is for you. It's like, it's really bad. It's like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad. So I now move around as much as possible."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Motivation

"The best we can do, to paraphrase Pollan, is to eat whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Motivation

"I pledged to become the world's greatest expert in a field I knew nothing about."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Wisdom

"My goal? To test out every diet and exercise regimen on planet earth and figure out which work best. I sweated, I cooked, I learned to pole dance. In the end, I lost weight, lowered my cholesterol and doubled my energy level. I feel better than I ever have."

A. J. Jacobs
Topic: Wisdom

"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."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Motivation

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

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

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

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

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

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Love

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

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

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

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Motivation

"When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"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."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"The environment shapes people's actions."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Motivation

"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."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"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."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Motivation

"Religions work for their own aggrandizement - strengthen the church and so on - and they use reinforcers of one kind or another to get obedience and so on from their communicants."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

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

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"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."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Wisdom

"I have to tell people that they are not responsible for their behavior. They're not creating it; they're not initiating anything. It's all found somewhere else. That's an awful lot to relinquish."

B. F. Skinner
Topic: Creativity
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Thinkers Born on March 20th

Explore the bios and quotes of other famous people born on March 20th.