B. F. Skinner Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.”

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

“Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions.”

“Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement.”

“No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.”

“I never really expected to be controversial.”

“I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control.”

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

“What is sought can never produce the seeking.”

“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.”