black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

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

Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
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
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
Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
B. F. SKINNER

Action Battle Boredom
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Determination
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 attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
B. F. SKINNER

Attack Help Society
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER

Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
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. SKINNER

Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
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
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
B. F. SKINNER

Comfortable Dedication Development Production Science Technology
We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
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
Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.
B. F. SKINNER

Different People Trying
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER

Ideas Myself People Thinking Value

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes