Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
B. F. SKINNERIt is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
-
-
Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
B. F. SKINNER -
The problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all.
B. F. SKINNER -
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
B. F. SKINNER -
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER -
At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
B. F. SKINNER -
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
B. F. SKINNER -
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
B. F. SKINNER -
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER -
Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
B. F. SKINNER -
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
B. F. SKINNER -
We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
B. F. SKINNER -
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. SKINNER -
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNER -
Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
B. F. SKINNER -
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.
B. F. SKINNER







