B. F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic "B.F." Skinner (1904-1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, philosopher, and professor. He was a pioneer in analysis of human behavior and the study of operant conditioning.

[Man] has never been in a better position to build a healthy, happy, and productive world; yet things have perhaps never seemed so black.

Science and Human Behavior

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

New Methods and New Aims in Teaching

It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.

I Have Been Misunderstood

Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

Walden Two

The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do.

Contingencies of Reinforcement

We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.

The Man and His Ideas (Evans)

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?

James the Just

[Joking is] proof of your superiority over . . . the things you’re poking fun at.

Nicolas Chamfort

Science consists largely in telling people things which they already know, in a language which they cannot understand.

Anonymous

Some religions draw by force of arms; [Jesus Christ] would draw by force of love.

Fulton Sheen

When threatened, the first thing a democracy gives up is democracy.

Mignon McLaughlin

I had much rather be a real president for three years and a half than a figurehead for seven years and a half.

Teddy Roosevelt

And as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born.

Edgar Allan Poe

In the composer, more than in any other artist, the man is entirely separate and distinct from the artist.

Arthur Schopenhauer

I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise.

George W. Bush

The pursuit of science has led me to conclude that the future is open and novelty is real.

Lee Smolin

We must not expect God to transform us without our bringing something to be transformed.

Fulton Sheen

Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.

Francis Bacon

If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

Charles Spurgeon

Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of nature more tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the various members of the community more widely apart.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The difference between faith and superstition is that the first uses reason to go as far as it can, and then makes the jump; the second shuns reason entirely.

Sydney J. Harris

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Ray Bradbury

I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.

Erasmus

If you chasing popularity, you’re chasing a moment, you’re chasing a puff of air.

George W. Bush

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Carl Sagan

An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

Elbert Hubbard

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