black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Behavior is determined by its consequences.

B. F. Skinner

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
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
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
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
Society 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. SKINNER

Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
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
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 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
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
B. F. SKINNER

Change Effort Mindset Violence
The problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all.
B. F. SKINNER

Build Education Impossible Live Philosophy Problem World
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
If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
B. F. SKINNER

Consumer Future People Save World
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
The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Education Mystery Relationship Responsible Satisfaction Simplicity View
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

Behavior is determined by its consequences.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Behavior is determined by its consequences.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes