Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" 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. "

Related Quotes:

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

B. F. Skinner

Future

People

Powerful

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I never really expected to be controversial. "

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

B. F. Skinner

Always

Man

" I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men. "

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

" If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. "

" 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. "

" Reinforcement is being right. "

" Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. "

" The environment shapes people's actions. "

" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "

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

" What is sought can never produce the seeking. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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

" The people who control the condition in which we live have no reason to think beyond more than the next five or 10 years. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" I'm very pessimistic. "

B. F. Skinner

Pessimistic

Very

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