Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it. "
B. F. Skinner
Improve
Get
Religion
Related Quotes:
" Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. "
B. F. Skinner
Early
Society
Individual
" I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control. "
B. F. Skinner
Totalitarian
Any
Control
" The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. "
B. F. Skinner
Think
Technology
Men
" You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements. "
B. F. Skinner
Along
World
You
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Responsible
Creating
People
" The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again. "
B. F. Skinner
Affect
Probability
Consequences
" Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. "
B. F. Skinner
Reinforcement
Used
Powerful
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Kind
Church
Get
" No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. "
B. F. Skinner
Always
He
Man
" The people who control the condition in which we live have no reason to think beyond more than the next five or 10 years. "
B. F. Skinner
Think
People
Control
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
College
Remember
Religion
" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "
B. F. Skinner
Contributions
Been
Scientific
" Reinforcement is being right. "
B. F. Skinner
Right
Reinforcement
Being
" We have not yet seen what man can make of man. "
B. F. Skinner
Man
Make
Seen
" The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry. "
B. F. Skinner
Directing
Act
Being
" If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. "
B. F. Skinner
Age
You
Change
" 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
" The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. "
B. F. Skinner
Will
Abandoned
Environment
" The environment shapes people's actions. "
B. F. Skinner
People
Shapes
Environment
" We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. "
B. F. Skinner
Teach
Books
Love
" When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it. "
B. F. Skinner
Study
Interesting
Everything
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Culture
Now
Money
" What is sought can never produce the seeking. "
B. F. Skinner
Never
Sought
Produce
" 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? "
B. F. Skinner
Problems
Future
Environment
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Business
Words
People
" Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. "
B. F. Skinner
Been
Learned
Forgotten
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Space
Stars
Intelligence
" 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
Up
Decisions
Design
" Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. "
B. F. Skinner
Anything
Shape
Child
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Trying
Mistake
Stop