B. F. Skinner

I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control.

— B. F. Skinner

The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.

— B. F. Skinner

The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.

— B. F. Skinner

Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.

— B. F. Skinner

Behavior is determined by its consequences.

— B. F. Skinner

Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.

— B. F. Skinner

What is sought can never produce the seeking.

— B. F. Skinner

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

— B. F. Skinner

Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd, and the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are…

— B. F. Skinner

The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us - here and…

— B. F. Skinner

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

— B. F. Skinner

To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.

— 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

Those few people who do respond to the dire conditions of the future - journalists, environmentalists, behavioral scientists - tend not to…

— B. F. Skinner

The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry.

— 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

I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to…

— B. F. Skinner

I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for…

— B. F. Skinner

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is…

— B. F. Skinner

I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of…

— B. F. Skinner

A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the…

— B. F. Skinner

The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior - verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not…

— B. F. Skinner

Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in…

— B. F. Skinner

We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise…

— B. F. Skinner

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

— B. F. Skinner

Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.

— B. F. Skinner

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

— B. F. Skinner

I've often said that my rats have taught me much more than I've taught them.

— B. F. Skinner

Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.

— B. F. Skinner

Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences

— B. F. Skinner

A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.

— 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…

— B. F. Skinner

The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.

— 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…

— B. F. Skinner

A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake…

— B. F. Skinner

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

— B. F. Skinner

Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.

— B. F. Skinner

Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say…

— B. F. Skinner

It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a…

— B. F. Skinner