black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.

B. F. Skinner

…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. SKINNER

Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
B. F. SKINNER

Construction Problem Problem Solving
Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNER

Deep Destruction Genius Mad Men
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
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
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. SKINNER

Absence Control Feeling Force Freedom
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
B. F. SKINNER

Cry Goodness Life Wait
I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
B. F. SKINNER

Afraid Believe Death God Myself
Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
B. F. SKINNER

Blame Born Education Failure Live Ourselves Understand Way Wrong
I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
B. F. SKINNER

Anxiety Death Myself Worry
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

Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Freedom Improvement Issues Men Mistake
A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
B. F. SKINNER

Development Mathematics Nature Process Reading Violence
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. SKINNER

Happiness Man Production Skill
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

Change Destroy Fashion Process Style Worth
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

Action Inspirational Journey Start

Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes