Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. "
B. F. Skinner
Early
Society
Individual
Related Quotes:
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Children
History
Myself
" 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
" 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
" When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it. "
B. F. Skinner
Study
Interesting
Everything
" The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. "
B. F. Skinner
Will
Abandoned
Environment
" 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
" 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
" No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. "
B. F. Skinner
Always
He
Man
" The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again. "
B. F. Skinner
Affect
Probability
Consequences
" I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men. "
B. F. Skinner
I Am
Military
Use
" 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
" I'm very pessimistic. "
B. F. Skinner
Pessimistic
Very
" We have not yet seen what man can make of man. "
B. F. Skinner
Man
Make
Seen
" Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful. "
B. F. Skinner
Reinforcement
Used
Powerful
" 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
" 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
" If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. "
B. F. Skinner
Age
You
Change
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Mother
Culture
Think
" 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
" I never really expected to be controversial. "
B. F. Skinner
Expected
Controversial
Never
" We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. "
B. F. Skinner
Teach
Books
Love
" 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 insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down. "
B. F. Skinner
Structure
Society
Rights
" The environment shapes people's actions. "
B. F. Skinner
People
Shapes
Environment
" Reinforcement is being right. "
B. F. Skinner
Right
Reinforcement
Being
" 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
" Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. "
B. F. Skinner
Been
Learned
Forgotten
" What is sought can never produce the seeking. "
B. F. Skinner
Never
Sought
Produce