B. F. Skinner on action
B. F. Skinner107 quotes“It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.”
Filed under
More from B. F. Skinner
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner
Original quotes
From our community writers
You were fully clothed in lies, I was naked in truth. Still, when morning came It was I who survived the cold.
Obehi Vessel A.Obehi Vessel A. I loved you as Icarus loved the sun- too close, too much.
David JonesDavid Jones We attract who our souls need to grow.
Mark AnthonyMark Anthony You’re my bad habit, on this dark planet, light up my world like stars, now they’re ashes.
Chris AllchinChris Allchin Permanence is a wonderful magician. Now you see him, next he goes on to perform the greatest disappearing act of all time.
Hamilton K. AmadiHamilton K. Amadi Live to be happy not to impress.
Hayley EvansHayley Evans You shined your light on all the things I’ve been trying so hard to hide.
CindyCindy You are the love I could never escape not that I would ever want to.
TMCTMC
Meet the writers
More on action
Historia (Inquiry); so that the actions of of people will not fade with time.
HerodotusHerodotus We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.
Calvin CoolidgeCalvin Coolidge Learn to feel yourself in other bodies, to know that we are all one. Throw all other nonsense to the winds. Spit out your actions, good or bad, and never think of them again. What is done is done. Throw off superstition. Have no weakness even in the face of death. Be free.
Swami VivekanandaSwami Vivekananda Not in his speech, not in his thoughts, I see his greatness, only in his actions, in his life.
Hermann HesseHermann Hesse That’s always been my philosophy. – I’ve never thought of the consequences of a necessary action.
Indira GandhiIndira Gandhi Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness
Swami VivekanandaSwami Vivekananda Life is the mode of action of proteins.
Friedrich EngelsFriedrich Engels Hollywood seems to succumb to fads. Well, action films do well. Give me violence. Give me a scene where there’s a couple of car chases or shooting and stuff like that. They’re forgetting the fact that there’s a basic structure to a story that is essential to making it really broad and appealing.
Clint EastwoodClint Eastwood
Keep exploring
More American psychologists
