Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNERSomehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNERSociety already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
B. F. SKINNERI 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. SKINNERThose 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. SKINNERA 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. SKINNERMen build society and society builds men.
B. F. SKINNERBehavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNERA 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. SKINNERA 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. SKINNERThe major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
B. F. SKINNERIt 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. SKINNEREducation is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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. SKINNERWe do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SKINNERI’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
B. F. SKINNERChaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNER