B F Skinner Quotes

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.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.
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.
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
The consequences of an act affect the probability of it's occurring again.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
A person who has been punished is not less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions.
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.
Great scientific contributions have been techniques.
I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
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.
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.
I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it.
I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.
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.
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AuthorName
B. F. Skinner
Profession
Psychologist
BirthDate
20 March, 1904
DeathDate
18 August, 1990
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