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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

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B. F. Skinner
Age: 86 †
Born: 1904
Born: March 20
Died: 1990
Died: August 18
Autobiographer
Ethologist
Inventor
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Susquehanna Depot
Pennsylvania
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Skinner BF
moiksu moiii
Cannot
Explain
Doe
Questions
Persons
Behavior
Behaves
Person
Whose
Attribute
Either
Inclined
Justice
Unable
Asks
Attributes
Understand
Behave

More quotes by B. F. Skinner

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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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Fame is also won at the expense of others. Even the well-deserved honors of the scientist or man of learning are unfair to many persons of equal achievements who get none. When one man gets a place in the sun, the others are put in a denser shade. From the point of view of the whole group there's no gain whatsoever, and perhaps a loss.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. Skinner
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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
B. F. Skinner
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To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. Skinner
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I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
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The extent to which human aggression exemplifies innate tendencies is not clear.
B. F. Skinner
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If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
B. F. Skinner
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The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. Skinner
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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
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The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us - here and now.
B. F. Skinner
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To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. Skinner
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The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... a man may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
B. F. Skinner
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In the world at large we seldom vote for a principle or a given state of affairs. We vote for a man who pretends to believe in that principle or promises to achieve that state. We don't want a man, we want a condition of peace and plenty-- or, it may be, war and want-- but we must vote for a man.
B. F. Skinner
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I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.
B. F. Skinner
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Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection?
B. F. Skinner