B. F. Skinner

Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

B. F. Skinner

Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair – or the height of a battle against boredom.

B. F. Skinner

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

B. F. Skinner

That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.

B. F. Skinner

The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.

B. F. Skinner

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

B. F. Skinner

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

B. F. Skinner

The Greek gods were said to change behavior by giving men and women mental states, such as pride, mental confusion, or courage, but no one has been successful in doing so since.

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

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