B.F. Skinner, born in 1904, was an influential American psychologist known for his work in behaviorism and operant conditioning. He pioneered the theory that behavior is influenced by environmental stimuli, particularly reinforcement or punishment. Skinner’s research led to the development of the operant conditioning chamber, or “Skinner box,” used to study animal behavior in controlled settings. His work had a profound impact on fields such as education, therapy, and animal training. Skinner also designed teaching machines and programmed instruction methods to enhance learning efficiency. Despite controversy surrounding his views on free will and human autonomy, his contributions to psychology remain highly regarded. Skinner authored numerous books, including “Walden Two” and “Beyond Freedom and Dignity,” further shaping the discourse in psychology and behavioral science. He passed away in 1990, leaving behind a legacy of innovative research and influential theories in the field of psychology.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner Quotes
01. “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
02. “A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. ”
― B.F. Skinner
03. “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
04. “Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.”
― B.F. Skinner
05. “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
06. “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
07. “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
08. “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
09. “What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.”
― B.F. Skinner
10. “A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.”
― B.F. Skinner
11. “Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.”
― B.F. Skinner
12. “If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.”
― B.F. Skinner
13. “At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.”
― B.F. Skinner
14. “The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.”
― B.F. Skinner
15. “It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.”
― B.F. Skinner
16. “A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.”
― B.F. Skinner
17. “Democracy is the spawn of despotism. And like father, like son. Democracy is power and rule. It’s not the will of the people, remember; it’s the will of the majority.”
― B.F. Skinner
18. “Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom. The ‘ologies’ will tell you how its done Theology calls it building a conscience or developing a spirit of selflessness. Psychology calls it the growth of the superego. Considering how long society has been at it, you’d expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured.”
― B.F. Skinner
19. “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
20. “Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.”
― B.F. Skinner
21. “It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.”
― B.F. Skinner
22. “…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.”
― B.F. Skinner
23. “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
24. “We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.”
― B. F. Skinner
25. “A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.”
― B.F. Skinner
26. “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
27. “But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.”
― B.F. Skinner
28. “Men build society and society builds men.”
― B.F. Skinner
29. “In the world at large we seldom vote for a principle or a given state of affairs. We vote for a man who pretends to believe in that principle or promises to achieve that state. We don’t want a man, we want a condition of peace and plenty– or, it may be, war and want– but we must vote for a man.”
― B.F. Skinner
30. “Each of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else… ‘everybody else’ we call ‘society’. It’s a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.”
― B.F. Skinner
31. “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
32. “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
33. “The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.”
― B.F. Skinner
34. “The world’s a poor standard. any society which is free of hunger and violence looks bright against that background.”
― B.F. Skinner
35. “The tender sentiment of the ‘one and only’ has less to do with constancy of heart than with singleness of opportunity.”
― B.F. Skinner
36. “It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.”
― B.F. Skinner
37. “Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair–or the height of a battle against boredom.”
― B.F. Skinner
38. “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
39. “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
40. “Freedom is an illusion, but a valuable one.”
― B.F Skinner
41. “Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way– to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.”
― B.F. Skinner
42. “The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.”
― B. F. Skinner
43. “The amateur doesn’t appreciate the need for experimentation. He wants his experts to know.”
― B.F. Skinner
44. “Nowadays, everybody fancies himself an expert in government and wants to have a say.”
― B.F. Skinner
45. “The rat is always right.”
― BF Skinner
46. “In a democracy, there is no check against despotism, because the principle of democracy is supposed to be itself a check. But it guarantees only that the majority will not be despotically ruled.”
― B.F. Skinner
47. “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
48. “The final state of affairs may not have been foreseen. Perhaps we are merely reading a plan into the world after the fact.”
― B.F. Skinner
49. “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
50. “The consequences of behavior determine the probability that the behavior will occur again”
― B.F. Skinner
51. “Science is human behavior, and so is the opposition to science. What”
― B.F. Skinner
52. “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
53. “I would have been glad to agree to let them all proceed henceforth in complete ignorance of psychology, if they would forget my opinion of chocolate sodas or the story of the amusing episode on a Spanish streetcar.”
― B. F. Skinner
54. “If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of a culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of their behaviour.”
― B. F. Skinner
55. “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.”
― Burrhus Frederic Skinner
56. “The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.”
― B. F. Skinner
57. “A failure is not always a mistake. It may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”
― B.F. Skinner
