Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. SKINNEREducation is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. SKINNERThe 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. SKINNERWas putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
B. F. SKINNERSomehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNERI did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
B. F. SKINNERWe do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SKINNERTo say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNERMen build society and society builds men.
B. F. SKINNERThe only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNERA first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNERI don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
B. F. SKINNERIn 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. SKINNERIt 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. SKINNERDoes 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. SKINNERWe 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. SKINNERA 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.
B. F. SKINNER