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Authors:

B. F. Skinner quotes

American Psychologist March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990

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Quotes

B. F. Skinner quote: "What is love except another name for the use of positive..."
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa. B. F. Skinner
In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider. B. F. Skinner
Promising paradise or threatening hell-fire is, we assumed, generally admitted to be unproductive. It is based upon a fundamental fraud which, when discovered, turns the individual against society and nourishes the very thing it tries to stamp out. What Jesus offered in return of loving one's enemies was heaven on earth, better known as peace of mind. B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner quote: "We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of..."
We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. B. F. Skinner
We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression. B. F. Skinner
The majority of people don't want to plan. They want to be free of the responsibility of planning. What they ask for is merely some assurance that they will be decently provided for. The rest is a day-to-day enjoyment of life. That's the explanation for your Father Divines; people naturally flock to anyone they can trust for the necessities of life... They are the backbone of a community--solid, trust-worthy, essential. B. F. Skinner
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. B. F. Skinner
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. B. F. Skinner
No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out. B. F. Skinner
In a pre-scientific society the best the common man can do is pin his faith on a leader and give him his support, trusting in his benevolence against the misuse of the delegated power and in his wisdom to govern justly and make war successfully. B. F. Skinner
Going out of style isn't a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year's dress in order to make it worthless. B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner quote: "If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s..."
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom. B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner quote: "not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.'..."
...not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake. B. F. Skinner
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. B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner quote: "The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more..."
The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. B. F. Skinner

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