B. F. Skinner Quotes - 9quotes.com

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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
Written by B. F. Skinner
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
Written by B. F. Skinner
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
Written by B. F. Skinner
Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.
Written by B. F. Skinner
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
Written by B. F. Skinner
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
Written by B. F. Skinner
The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
Written by B. F. Skinner
The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry.
Written by B. F. Skinner
We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.
Written by B. F. Skinner
I'm very pessimistic.
Written by B. F. Skinner
Those few people who do respond to the dire conditions of the future - journalists, environmentalists, behavioral scientists - tend not to be powerful.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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?
Written by B. F. Skinner
The environment shapes people's actions.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
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.
Written by B. F. Skinner
I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it.
Written by B. F. Skinner
Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful.
Written by B. F. Skinner
I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed.
Written by B. F. Skinner
The people who control the condition in which we live have no reason to think beyond more than the next five or 10 years.
Written by B. F. Skinner
I never really expected to be controversial.
Written by B. F. Skinner

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