Skinner Quotes

[Skinner] does not invoke other events, processes, or mechanisms which are hypothesized or invented for the purpose of mediating between behavior and its empirical determinants. This omission is sometimes misconstrued as a denial that mediating mechanisms exist; they obviously do, they are obviously neurological and they are also obviously themselves lawful. ...The argument [against employing them as part of scientific practice] is simplicity itself... [Skinner] considers such theoretical terms unnecessary; they may generate research whose only usefulness is to disconfirm the mediating entity or redefine it without increasing our knowledge of behavior's controlling variables; they can become the absorbing focus of an inquiry and so deflect attention from behavior itself; they can become a "refuge from the data". ~ Kenneth MacCorquodale

A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself. ~ B.F. Skinner

I wanted to absorb every moment of this night. I knew it was special. I wanted to keep it locked away inside me forever just the way it was. When I closed my eyes to sleep, I thought of how he'd glowed like a jewel in the light of the campfire. The way the flames carved him against the darkness. The very shape of his head. The smudges of chocolate and marshmallows on his fingers and lips. How the hair on his legs looked like filaments of gold. When I was certain my heart hat painted the canvas in my memory...I fell asleep. ~ Dan Skinner

There is no English equivalent for the French word flâneur. Cassell's dictionary defines flâneur as a stroller, saunterer, drifter but none of these terms seems quite accurate. There is no English equivalent for the term, just as there is no Anglo-Saxon counterpart of that essentially Gallic individual, the deliberately aimless pedestrian, unencumbered by any obligation or sense of urgency, who, being French and therefore frugal, wastes nothing, including his time which he spends with the leisurely discrimination of a gourmet, savoring the multiple flavors of his city. ~ Cornelia Otis Skinner

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

Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived," but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student's life. ~ B.F. Skinner

I smoked one too many cigarettes-
I heard one too many lies-
Gambled on too many bets-
And lost it all to this life. ~ Mike Skinner

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

I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills. ~ B.F. Skinner

Demon comes from daimon, which means 'intelligence' or 'individual destiny', whereas angel means messenger. Originally daimones were always perceived as being positive entities. The Greek philosopher Plato introduced the division between kakodaemons and eudaemons, or benevolent and malevolent daimons, in the fourth century BCE. Seven centuries later in the third century CE, the Neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry made an interesting distinction, this being essentially that the good daimones were the ones who governed their emotions and being, whereas bad daimones were governed by them. ~ Stephen Skinner

I know in the past I've found it hard to say-
Telling you things but not telling straight-
But the more I pull on your hand and say-
The more you pull alway. ~ Mike Skinner

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

The Kismet soon approaches. A new dawn is on the rise. The winds of change are blowing. ~ Jordan Skinner

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

I've had only one idea in my life - a true idee fixe. To put it as bluntly as possible - the idea of having my own way. 'Control!' expresses it. The control of human behavior. In my early experimental days it was a frenzied, selfish desire to dominate. I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought! ~ B.F. Skinner

As the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner proved in the laboratory, the human mind seeks relationships between events and often finds them even when they are not present. Slot-machines are based on Skinnerian principles of intermittent reinforcement. The dumb human, like the dumb rat, only needs an occasional payoff to keep pulling the handle. The mind will do the rest. ~ Michael Shermer

I'd never blame anyone else who falls for the same brand of seduction. I embrace that we're all similarly flawed. That makes the self-inflicted wounds hurt less. I'd read Tennessee Williams. I just didn't expect to be living my own tainted little version of Suddenly Last Summer. ~ Dan Skinner

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

I've worked with Emily Skinner and I've seen Linda Balgord's work. I saw Harvey Keitel at the call-backs. But generally I don't know many people. They're not only good performers; they're really good singers! This show is for people who have more of a history in reading music. From what I already know about the ensemble, it's going to be great. And I can't wait to meet the rest of them. They're the real deal. ~ Max Von Essen

I honestly thought my marriage would work because me and the wife did share a sense of humour. We had to really, because she didn't have one. ~ Frank Skinner

Your first kiss. I wanted it to be mine. ~ Dan Skinner

The rat is always right. ~ B.F. Skinner

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

Freedom is an illusion, but a valuable one. ~ Skinner

If you are inherently a good guy, which I think I am, you instinctively want to help people even before you know what their problem may be. Which, as I examine that notion, makes good guys sound gullible. Con artists look for good guys because of that built-in gullibility. If they're con artists that come in a sexually alluring package, a good guy can become a brainless idiot. Allow me to introduce myself. ~ Dan Skinner

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

It there's one thing we have to get used to...it's that we can't get used to things."(Rosemary) ~ Dan Skinner

Women keep a special corner of their hearts for sins they have never committed. ~ Cornelia Otis Skinner

Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. ~ B.F. Skinner

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

Nowadays, everybody fancies himself an expert in government and wants to have a say. ~ B.F. Skinner

But independently of their money value, his works had made him a lasting name in literature. So probably Gallio was under the impression that his fame would rest upon the treatises on natural history which we gather from Seneca that he compiled, and which for aught we know may have contained a complete theory of evolution; but the treatises are all gone and Gallio has become immortal for the very last reason in the world that he expected, and for the very last reason that would have flattered his vanity. He has become immortal because he cared nothing about the most important movement with which he was ever brought into connection (I wish people who are in search of immortality would lay the lesson to heart and not make so much noise about important movements), and so, if Dr Skinner becomes immortal, it will probably be for some reason very different from the one which he so fondly imagined. ~ Samuel Butler

Many social practices essential to the welfare of the species involve the control of one person by another, and no one can suppress them who has any concern for human achievements ~ B.F. Skinner

In one single moment your whole life can turn around. ~ Mike Skinner

He knew for the first time ever that someone existed who actually cared for him. ~ Dan Skinner

I only saw glimpses of the real world around me. Reality dissolved beneath the press of his lips against mine. I lost myself. In that moment there was We...
He enveloped me. I felt his strength. He seemed gigantic to me. And yet gentle. His breath was inside me. I tasted what he tasted like. All the scents of that instant cascaded upon me. His sweet. The roses. The nectar of the feeders. The wood that hat hammered into with nails. The sweet raspberries on his mouth. ~ Dan Skinner

The evolution of cultures appears to follow the pattern of the evolution of species. The many different forms of culture which arise correspond to the "mutations" of genetic theory. Some forms prove to be effective under prevailing circumstances and others not, and the perpetuation of the culture is determined accordingly. ~ B.F. Skinner

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

Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools? ~ B.F. Skinner

It's hard t want to fit in and not be able to," his voice came barely above a whisper. "They make us feel like it's easier to lie than be truthful. Easier to hide than be seen. Make us feel like we did something wrong to not be like them. Like we made a conscious choice". ~ Dan Skinner

I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die. ~ B.F. Skinner

Rigorously investigated and fearlessly reported, A Crime So Monstrous is a passionate and thorough examination of the appalling reality of human bondage in today's world. In his devastating narrative, Ben Skinner boldly casts light on the unthinkable, yet thriving, modern-day practice of slavery, exposing a global trade in human lives. The abuses detailed in these pages are repugnant, but there is hope to be found: by giving voice to the victims, Skinner helps restore their dignity and makes crucial strides toward closing this shameful chapter in history. ~ William J. Clinton

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

Anthony Skinner has a fire in his heart to worship God, and to encourage and equip others to do the same. ~ Matt Redman

I want that, when I'm in my fifties and I look back to my first kiss, I think, Wow! I want to remember it as being amazing. That it's one of the most special moments of my life. I want to remember the person I share that with to be important to me. Not just someone who happened along at the right time. It's not just and act of the body. It's an act of the heart." (Ryan) ~ Dan Skinner

Love is like that. It's a real thing. It isn't governed by laws that men make up because they believe in something that isn't real. You suddenly feel it. It comes upon you like an ocean wave and pulls you along in its tide. As natural as can be. It's not a choice. It's not a figment of imagination. It's no different than a honeybee on a flower doing what it's supposed to do. The end result is just as sweet. And when you taste it you say:"Yum! ~ Dan Skinner

You ordered one dead angel. I brought one dead angel. Did I get your order wrong? Gosh, I suppose there won't be a tip. ~ Tricia Skinner

I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control. ~ B.F. Skinner

I was in some other guy's version of heaven. ~ Dan Skinner

The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. ~ B.F. Skinner

So, Arsenal have signed Arsene Wenger because his name sounds a bit like the club. How long before Man Utd sign Stefan Kuntz? ~ Frank Skinner

Ionie extended her hand and offered a warm smile. Katie wasn't in the mood to make friends. A mind reader, a lie detector, a guy who used sound as a weapon, and a murderer. Nope. No future BFFs here. ~ Tricia Skinner

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

Men build society and society builds men. ~ B.F. Skinner

Diamond Skinner had had no material possessions to his name and yet had been the happiest creature Lou had ever met. He and God would no doubt get along famously. ~ David Baldacci

It's like the little rat in the Skinner box who says, "I've got this psychologist under my control. Every time I press the bar, he gives me a food pellet." ~ Jess Lair

ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? JOHNSON. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch. ADAMS. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman. ~ Samuel Johnson

I tried to turn my mind off. Shut down the thoughts that were with me every second. Everything in me ached to be with him. It was worse than an obsession. It was a need. ~ Dan Skinner

Carrot-and-stick reinforcement' the behaviorists are telling us is needed for this bird to carry out these operations, thirteen different types of construction jobs? B. F. Skinner did a very good thing: in World War ~ William Peter Blatty

The world's a poor standard. any society which is free of hunger and violence looks bright against that background. ~ B.F. Skinner

The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us - here and now. ~ B.F. Skinner

How did he close off that part of his brain that tells someone they've harmed another soul?...Most frighteningly of all, are some of us born with no conscience at all? ~ Dan Skinner

Love doesn't happen because you find the right bricks and cement to build it. Love really is...pure magic. It comes from" - she gestured toward the heavens - "out there. And if falls like pixie dust where it wants. And when id does...you can fly."
(Rosemary) ~ Dan Skinner

She's lovely and she's with Skinner, and they're probably in love and there's no justice in this world ~ Irvine Welsh

Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go. ~ B.F. Skinner

In the 1970s and a lot of the 1980s, we would have thanked our lucky stars in the coalfield areas for growth of 1.75 per cent. The only thing growing then were the lines of coke in front of boy George and the rest of them. ~ Dennis Skinner

The French have no such expression as 'killing time.' In their more philosophical vocabulary the term is 'passing time,' which means savoring all moments of it each to his individual enjoyment. While we battle with time, they relax with tempo. ~ Cornelia Otis Skinner

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

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

The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion ... [a man] may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson. ~ B.F. Skinner

We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word 'admire' then means 'marvel at.' ~ B.F. Skinner

They told me how men made laws that allowed them to discriminate, segregate, and incarcerate without due process. Men are still writing those same laws today. They might wrap them in a different flag, but we can see that swastika underneath. ~ Dan Skinner

You must feel a certain lack of excitement in these accouncements. No garish posters, no bright lights, none of the paraphernalia with which the entertainment industry whips up a jaded public. But in a day or so these simple notices will begin to take on all the excitement of the shimmering marquee. When there are no signs ten feet high, five feet will do. When there are none five feet high, one foot serves well enough. It isn't the color or brightness or size of a poster which makes it exciting. It's the experiences which have accompanied similar posters in the past. The excitement is a conditioned reflex. Our bulletin board is our Great White Way, and we're dazzled by it. ~ B.F. Skinner

It was hard to tell if he was lying, or really believed his own bullshit. "We're good for each other. You give me what I need. I give you what you need. No one needs to know what that is because it's a secret between us. So we put on our suit. That's the investment: us. ~ Dan Skinner

You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements. ~ B.F. Skinner

Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes. ~ B.F. Skinner

I solemnly swear that I will bear true and faithful allegiance to the Queen when she pays her income tax ~ Dennis Skinner

What is sought can never produce the seeking. ~ 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 parents come from a very strictly defined culture. ~ B.F. Skinner

Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement. ~ B.F. Skinner

Behavior is determined by its consequences. ~ B.F. Skinner

I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed. ~ B.F. Skinner

Faggot, queer, fairy. Those words aren't taught in a history course. You don't learn them with the alphabet. Discrimination comes from the circles you're supposed to trust. The home, the family, the church. They try to convince you God made you in his image, and then would destroy you because you weren't good enough. That's a good God? Who comes up with this crap? ~ Dan Skinner

Saying "I love you forever" won't hold us together. ~ Mike Skinner

To Mr. Blot, who went through life an unconscious example of the raison d'être of the British Empire, a shipwreck was merely one of the many things to be ignored. His was a calming influence. ~ Cornelia Otis Skinner

Great scientific contributions have been techniques. ~ B.F. Skinner

Anyway, my writer gang: they kind of did their comedy apprenticeship with me and, during that period, when they were young and impressionable, I think I infected them with my pun virus. They grew to enjoy puns, think puns, just as much as me. The problem is people don't really like puns any more, so I worry I've rendered the poor fuckers virtually unemployable. ~ Frank Skinner

I came from a family of physical abuse. He came from one that had a psychological terrorist. ~ Dan 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

Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions. ~ 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 production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort. ~ B.F. Skinner

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) is a new model of banking based on cloud computing structures of digital banking. ~ Chris Skinner

Public opinion which, to be sure, can at times be helpful, must never for an instant swerve us from what we know in our heart we are trying to convey. For honesty is the great requisite of art. If we remain honest with ourselves, art, which is always there, never lets us down. ~ Cornelia Otis Skinner

The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent. ~ B.F. Skinner

I know this sounds ridiculous," he spoke solemnly, lacing his fingers in my hair. "But sometimes I feel like I'm caught in your gravity. And no matter where I am, anywhere in the world, if I wrote 'I love you' on a note, and made a paper airplane, and threw it into the breeze...it would still find you. My words couldn't escape you, any more than I can." (Ryan) ~ Dan 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

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

Despite the dangers and discomforts, climbing is for many an all-consuming passion. They interrupt, end, or never start their careers, focusing exclusively on completing the next climb. Climber Todd Skinner said free climbing means "going right to the edge" of your capabilites. For many climbers, this closeness to death - the risk of dying - produces an adrenaline rush that most other life experiences simply can't. It is what keeps many of them married to the sport. Probably no other sport creates such a feeling of oneness with Mother Nature. Attached to a mountainside by fingertips and toes, the climber necessarily becomes part of the rock - or else. One climber says that while scaling a granite face, she felt close to God, so intense was her relationship with the natural world.
Climbers speak of "floating" or "performing a ballet" over the rock, each placement of foot and each reach into a crack creating unity with the mountain. The sport is one of total engagement with the here-and-now, which frees the mind from everything else. Climbers' concentration is complete and focused. Their only thought is executing the next move...
Ken Bokelund... said: "Climbing for me has always been the strength of the body over the weakness of the mind. If you train so that you are very strong physically and you have mastered the techniques, then all that's left is believing. Freeing your mind of fear is the key. This is very difficult to do, but when you can achieve it, then you ar ~ Bob Madgic

I wanted to tell everyone I was in love. I wanted to tell them how I felt. I wanted to scream if off the porch to complete strangers. It was a feeling that didn't want to be contained in the small privacy of my mind. Of course, I knew there would be no telling anyone. I'd heard the word so many times. But I'd never contemplated its meaning.
Love.
It hat explained itself to me. I was swept away by what it really meant. It was a word used to convey what had no language. It was a word used to explain a million things that couldn't be explained. It simplified what the heart could not. ~ Dan Skinner