B. F. Skinner Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.

  B. F. Skinner

  Justice, Doe, Behavior

  120 Copy quote

• No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out.

  B. F. Skinner

  Education, Baby, Curiosity

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.114, Hackett Publishing

  107 Copy quote

• Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.

  B. F. Skinner

  Men, Genius, Chaos

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.116, Hackett Publishing

  37 Copy quote

• 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

  Education, World, Impossible

  33 Copy quote

• Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?

  B. F. Skinner

  School, Moon, Men

  49 Copy quote

• A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.

  B. F. Skinner

  Self, Behavior, Given

  105 Copy quote

• I've often said that my rats have taught me much more than I've taught them.

  B. F. Skinner

  Rats, Taught, Said

  60 Copy quote

• 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

  People, Trying, Different

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.181, Hackett Publishing

  21 Copy quote

• Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.

  B. F. Skinner

  Country, Age, Enjoy

  15 Copy quote

• To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.

  B. F. Skinner

  Variables, Way, Different

  B.F. Skinner (1969). “Contingencies of Reinforcement”

  14 Copy quote

• Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?

  B. F. Skinner

  Environmental, Doe, Poet

  B. F. Skinner (2015). “Cumulative Record: Definitive Edition”, p.480, B. F. Skinner Foundation

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Education, Doe, May

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.109, Hackett Publishing

  120 Copy quote

• 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

  Education, Honesty, Intellectual

  16 Copy quote

• An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.

  B. F. Skinner

  Education, Important, Skins

  B. F. Skinner (2014). “Verbal Behavior”, p.145, B. F. Skinner Foundation

  69 Copy quote

• 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

  Education, Understanding, Way

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.99, Hackett Publishing

  78 Copy quote

• 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

  Education, Views, Mysterious

  67 Copy quote

• A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

  B. F. Skinner

  Running, Interesting, Principles

  B. F. Skinner (2015). “Cumulative Record: Definitive Edition”, p.157, B. F. Skinner Foundation

  11 Copy quote

• 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

  Effort, Mind, Behaviour

  93 Copy quote

• No theory changes what it is a theory about. Nothing is changed because we look at it, talk about it, or analyze it in a new way. Keats drank confusion to Newton for analyzing the rainbow, but the rainbow remained as beautiful as ever and became for many even more beautiful. Man has not changed because we look at him, talk about him, and analyze him scientifically. ... What does change is our chance of doing something about the subject of a theory. Newton's analysis of the light in a rainbow was a step in the direction of the laser.

  B. F. Skinner

  Beautiful, Men, Light

  143 Copy quote

• 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

  Disappointment, Errors, Might

  11 Copy quote

• Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.

  B. F. Skinner

  Teacher, Teaching, Needs

  41 Copy quote

• Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.

  B. F. Skinner

  Education, Advantage, Ends

  B. F. Skinner (2016). “The Technology of Teaching”, p.144, B. F. Skinner Foundation

  13 Copy quote

• We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.

  B. F. Skinner

  Inspiring, Education, Book

  "B. F. Skinner: The Man and His Ideas". Book by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73, 1968.

  68 Copy quote

• Men build society and society builds men.

  B. F. Skinner

  Men

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.257, Hackett Publishing

  19 Copy quote

• Punitive measures whether administered by police, teachers, spouses or parents have well known standard effects: (1) escape-education has its own name for that: truancy, (2) counterattack-vandalism on schools and attacks on teachers, (3) apathy-a sullen do-nothing withdrawal. The more violent the punishment, the more serious the by-products.

  B. F. Skinner

  Teacher, School, Punishment

  16 Copy quote

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