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 Quotes

The extent to which human aggression exemplifies innate tendencies is not clear.

— B. F. Skinner

Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.

— B. F. Skinner

A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

— B. F. Skinner

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.

— B. F. Skinner

Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.

— B. F. Skinner

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.

— B. F. Skinner

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

— B. F. Skinner

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

— B. F. Skinner

A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.

— B. F. Skinner

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.

— 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

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

Fame is also won at the expense of others. Even the well-deserved honors of the scientist or man of learning are unfair to many persons of equal achievements who get none. When one man gets a place in the sun, the others are put in a denser shade. From the point of view of the whole group there’s no gain whatsoever, and perhaps a loss.

— B.F. Skinner

Freedom is an illusion, but a valuable one.

— 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

The hero is a device which the historian has taken over from the layman. He uses it because he has no scientific vocabulary or technique for dealing with the real facts of history – the opinions, emotions, attitudes; the wishes, plans, schemes; the habits of men. He can’t talk about them so he talks about heroes.

— 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

The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again.

— B.F. Skinner

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

— B.F. Skinner

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.

— B.F. Skinner
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