black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

B. F. Skinner

When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
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
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
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Deep Different Way
At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
B. F. SKINNER

Born Intelligence Man Moments Problem Solve
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
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
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

Action Inspirational Journey Start
Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
B. F. SKINNER

Dignity Freedom People Punishment
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
B. F. SKINNER

Animal Difference Learning People
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
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
We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
B. F. SKINNER

Change Men Science See Transformation
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
…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. SKINNER

Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
B. F. SKINNER

Blame Born Education Failure Live Ourselves Understand Way Wrong

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes