B. F. Skinner Quotes
-
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.
-
What is sought can never produce the seeking.
-
Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it's merely their guess.
-
I'm very pessimistic.
-
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
-
The people who control the condition in which we live have no reason to think beyond more than the next five or 10 years.
-
In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can't buy love with gifts or favors, you can't hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can't be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
-
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.
-
The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent.
-
An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
-
I never really expected to be controversial.
-
You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements.
-
Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful.
-
The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... a man may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
-
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
-
The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
-
The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
-
We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
-
I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control.
-
It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It's a question of what's to be done from now on.
-
Going out of style isn't a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year's dress in order to make it worthless.
-
Reinforcement is being right.
-
Great scientific contributions have been techniques.