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

  119 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

  76 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

  119 Copy quote

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

  B. F. Skinner

  Men

  B.F Skinner (1965). “Science And Human Behavior”, p.229, Simon and Schuster

  7 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

  36 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

  9 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

  12 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

• 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

• 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

• Men build society and society builds men.

  B. F. Skinner

  Men

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

  18 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

• Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

  B. F. Skinner

  Thinking, Ideas, People

  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

  68 Copy quote

• Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

  B. F. Skinner

  Society, Positive Reinforcement, Individual

  B. F. Skinner (1974). “Walden Two”, p.95, Hackett Publishing

  85 Copy quote

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

  B. F. Skinner

  Men, Let Me, Wells

  B. F. Skinner (2015). “Cumulative Record: Definitive Edition”, p.32, B. F. Skinner Foundation

  7 Copy quote

• If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.

  B. F. Skinner

  Change, Age, Trying

  13 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

• 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.

  67 Copy quote

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

  B. F. Skinner

  School, Moon, Men

  48 Copy quote

• 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

  Mind, Personal History, Evolution

  20 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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