B. F. Skinner Quotations

Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences

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.

Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.

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.

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.

Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.

What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.

Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.

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.

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.