B. F. Skinner Quotes

Science not only describes, it predicts. It deals not only with the past but with the future. Nor is prediction the last word: to the extent that relevant conditions can be altered, or otherwise controlled, the future can be controlled. If we are to use the methods of science in the field of human affairs, we must assume that behavior is lawful and determined. We must expect to discover that what a man does is the result of specifiable conditions and that once these conditions have been discovered, we can anticipate and to some extent determine his actions.

Science is human behavior, and so is the opposition to science.

Once in a while a new government initiates a program to put power to better use, but its success or failure never really proves anything. In science, experiments are designed, checked, altered, repeated — but not in politics... We have no real cumulative knowledge. History tells us nothing. That's the tragedy of a political reformer.

Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is.

Compare two people, one of whom has been crippled by an accident, the other by an early environmental history which makes him lazy and, when criticized, mean. Both cause great inconvenience to others, but one dies a martyr, the other a scoundrel.

If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of a culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of their behaviour.

Now that we know how positive reinforcement works, and why negative doesn’t, we can be more deliberate and hence more successful, in our cultural design. We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled…nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That’s the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement — there’s no restraint and no revolt. By a careful design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave — the motives, the desires, the wishes. The curious thing is that in that case the question of freedom never arises.

Men build society and society builds men.

We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That's the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement — there's no restraint and no revolt. By careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave — the motives, desires, the wishes.

Δεν πρέπει να διδάσκουμε τα μεγάλα βιβλία, πρέπει να διδάσκουμε την αγάπη για το διάβασμα.

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.

It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.

We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.

One person manages another in the sense that he manages himself. He does not do so by changing feelings or states of mind. The Greek gods were said to change behavior by giving men mental states such as pride, mental confusion, or courage, but no one has been successful in doing so since. One person changes the behavior of another by changing the world in which he lives. In doing so, he no doubt changes what the other person feels or introspectively observes.