Quotes by B. F. Skinner

About B. F. Skinner:

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.
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The environment shapes people's actions.

B. F. Skinner

The people who control the condition in which we live have no reason to think beyond more than the next five or 10 years.

B. F. Skinner

I never really expected to be controversial.

B. F. Skinner

I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control.

B. F. Skinner

You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements.

B. F. Skinner

What is sought can never produce the seeking.

B. F. Skinner

The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.

B. F. Skinner

I have to tell people that they are not responsible for their behavior. They're not creating it; they're not initiating anything. It's all found somewhere else. That's an awful lot to relinquish.

B. F. Skinner

The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned.

B. F. Skinner

We have not yet seen what man can make of man.

B. F. Skinner

I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture.

B. F. Skinner

I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed.

B. F. Skinner

I would have been glad to agree to let them all proceed henceforth in complete ignorance of psychology, if they would forget my opinion of chocolate sodas or the story of the amusing episode on a Spanish streetcar.

B. F. Skinner

I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it.

B. F. Skinner

Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

B. F. Skinner

If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down.

B. F. Skinner
Technology quotes by B. F. Skinner, Men quotes by B. F. Skinner, UberQuotes

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

B. F. Skinner

I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.

B. F. Skinner

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.

B. F. Skinner

Properly used, positive reinforcement is extremely powerful.

B. F. Skinner

Religions work for their own aggrandizement - strengthen the church and so on - and they use reinforcers of one kind or another to get obedience and so on from their communicants.

B. F. Skinner

Author Bio

  • NameB. F. Skinner
  • DescriptionAmerican behaviorist, author, inventor, baseball enthusiast, social philosopher and poet
  • BornMarch 20, 1904
  • DiedAugust 18, 1990
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPsychologist; Philosopher; Inventor; Ethologist; Autobiographer
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Howard Crosby Warren Medal; Humanist Of The Year; APA Award For Distinguished Scientific Contributions To Psychology