“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
“A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.”
— B. F. Skinner
“The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.”
— B. F. Skinner
“Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.”
— 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 have been no more reticent.”
— 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 a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement. ”
— B. F. Skinner
“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.”
— B. F. Skinner
“Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.”
— 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
“Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.”
— B. F. Skinner
“Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.”
— 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