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" 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

Small

Task

Achievement

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" I never really expected to be controversial. "

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

" What is sought can never produce the seeking. "

" I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it. "

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

" 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. "

" Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

" Reinforcement is being right. "

" We have not yet seen what man can make of man. "

" You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements. "

" 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. "

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

" I'm very pessimistic. "

B. F. Skinner

Pessimistic

Very

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

B. F. Skinner

Important

Out

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

" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "

" Those few people who do respond to the dire conditions of the future - journalists, environmentalists, behavioral scientists - tend not to be powerful. "

" 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. "

" No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. "

B. F. Skinner

Always

Man

" The environment shapes people's actions. "

" 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

Decisions

Design

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

" 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. "

" The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. "

" Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. "

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

" The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry. "

" 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. "