black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

B. F. Skinner

A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
B. F. SKINNER

Explanation History Mindset Person Work
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
B. F. SKINNER

Freedom Happiness Human Illusion Necessary
No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.
B. F. SKINNER

Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
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. SKINNER

Avoid Learning Person Punishment Simplicity Way
The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Education Mystery Relationship Responsible Satisfaction Simplicity View
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Deep Different Way
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

Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. SKINNER

Happiness Man Production Skill
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
B. F. SKINNER

Change Effort Mindset Violence
Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.
B. F. SKINNER

Acceptance Education Honesty Intellectual Value
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

Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Forget Graduation Survive Teacher
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. SKINNER

Children Deserve Economic Gift Goodness Love Quality Serve Woman World
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
B. F. SKINNER

Education End Simplicity

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes