Quote

The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.

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
Great
Learn
Invention
Way
Language
Contact
Men
Others
Painful
World
Littles
Direct
Enabled
Little
Learned
Alphabet
Book
Effort
Store
Hard
Books
Stores
Real
Rather
Possibly

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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
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That's all teaching is arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
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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.
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To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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The human species took a crucial step forward when its vocal musculature came under operant control in the production of speech sounds. Indeed, it is possible that all the distinctive achievements of the species can be traced to that one genetic change.
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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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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.
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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.
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I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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The extent to which human aggression exemplifies innate tendencies is not clear.
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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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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.
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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.
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