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. SKINNERBehavior is determined by its consequences.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
B. F. SKINNER -
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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 -
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER -
A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNER -
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER -
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
B. F. SKINNER -
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER -
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNER -
Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
B. F. SKINNER -
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 -
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.
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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
B. F. SKINNER







