B. F. Skinner

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

Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?

B. F. Skinner

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

B. F. Skinner

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.

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

Freedom is an illusion, but a valuable one.

B. F. Skinner

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

B. F. Skinner

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

Great scientific contributions have been techniques.

B. F. Skinner

How much more we should know if the prevailing contingencies had been described rather than the feelings and isms generated by them.

B. F. Skinner