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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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
Behaved
Skillful
Informed
Productive
Happy
Wells
Well
Men
More quotes by B. F. Skinner
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
B. F. Skinner
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
The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent.
B. F. Skinner
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
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. Skinner
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
B. F. Skinner
To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. Skinner
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
Any single historical event is too complex to be adequately known by anyone. It transcends all the intellectual capacities of men. Our practice is to wait until a sufficient number of details have been forgotten. Of course things seem simpler then! Our memories work that way we retain the facts which are easiest to think about.
B. F. Skinner
A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he's often sure he can find one. And that's a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
B. F. Skinner
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
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. Skinner
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.
B. F. Skinner
...not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. Skinner
Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. Skinner
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
B. F. Skinner
A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.
B. F. Skinner
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. Skinner
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. Skinner
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