Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
All Quotes by author - 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. "
Trying
Mistake
Stop
" A person who has been punished is not less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment. "
Avoid
Way
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. "
Culture
Now
Money
" Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. "
Been
Learned
Forgotten
" 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. "
Small
Task
Achievement
" Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. "
Anything
Shape
Child
" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "
Contributions
Been
Scientific
" I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men. "
I Am
Military
Use
" 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. "
Business
Words
People
" 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. "
Up
Decisions
Design
" 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. "
Children
History
Myself
" I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it. "
Improve
Get
Religion
" 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. "
Mother
Culture
Think
" If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down. "
Structure
Society
Rights
" If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. "
Age
You
Change
" 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. "
Responsible
Creating
People
" I'm very pessimistic. "
Pessimistic
Very
" I never really expected to be controversial. "
Expected
Controversial
Never
" 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. "
College
Remember
Religion
" 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. "
Look
People
Think
" 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. "
Space
Stars
Intelligence
" I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control. "
Totalitarian
Any
Control
" 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? "
Problems
Future
Environment
" No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. "
Always
He
Man
" Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. "
Reinforcement
Used
Powerful
" Reinforcement is being right. "
Right
Reinforcement
Being
" 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. "
Kind
Church
Get
" Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. "
Early
Society
Individual
" The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again. "
Affect
Probability
Consequences
" The environment shapes people's actions. "
People
Shapes
Environment
Check our other websites:
BookDark
MusicDark