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. 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. SKINNERSomehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNERWhat is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
B. F. SKINNERWe 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. SKINNERYour 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. SKINNERGoing out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
B. F. SKINNERThe 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. SKINNERWe admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
B. F. SKINNERA permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNERA 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. SKINNERA first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNERThe one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
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. SKINNERSomething doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
B. F. SKINNERIf 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