B. F. Skinner - Life Quotes

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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
The one fact that I would cry from every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us—here and now!... At this very moment we have the necessary techniques, both material and psychological, to create a full and satisfying life for everyone.

B. F. Skinner
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
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
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