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
B. F. SKINNER
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.”
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More from B. 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 Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
B. F. SkinnerB. F. Skinner
Original quotes
From our community writers
They bleed not in the mouth but through their ink – indelible and dark.
Juana GarciaJuana Garcia I would rather shoot my arrows than keep them in my bow, I would rather risk it all than risk nothing at all.
ShamaShama I wish I knew then all of the things I know now that I am enough.
TMCTMC I feel like I’m on fire, fighting for a moment on respite – I’m not placing bets.
M.K. StandbyM.K. Standby I found him in all the chaos, and that was when my world started making sense again.
MoomerMoomer The judgement that people cast on you for how you do or do not appear is nothing more than just a projection of their own wounds.
Taj AroraTaj Arora Be grateful for what you have now, even if it’s not everything you wanted.
Sonia SabnisSonia Sabnis It seems strange how we look in the same mirror, yet what stares back, is so painfully different.
Chris AllchinChris Allchin
More on action
If you limit your actions in life to things that nobody can possibly find fault with, you will not do much!
Lewis CarrollLewis Carroll Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.
PericlesPericles Love is not just a feeling! Love of an action.
Abel StarcAbel Starc Stay humble, act with integrity and inspire.
Hei-Ran ParkHei-Ran Park Action is the key that solves all your problems.
Abel StarcAbel Starc In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.
PythagorasPythagoras Every action you’ve been putting towards your dreams is creating a powerful momentum to achieve them.
Lisa RoseLisa Rose Every action to preserve our biodiversity for our future generations counts.
Sachin TendulkarSachin Tendulkar
Keep exploring
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