We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SkinnerRead
Men build society and society builds men.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Society influences individual development while individuals contribute to the construction of society.
This quote suggests a reciprocal relationship between individuals and society where each shapes and influences the other. Men, as social beings, actively participate in constructing the structures, norms, and institutions that make up society, while simultaneously, the societal framework molds their identities, behaviors, and values, creating a dynamic interplay that is essential for the growth of both individuals and the collective.
Themes
SocietyIndividualsInfluenceDevelopmentInterdependence
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about community engagement, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of active participation in societal development.
More from B. F. Skinner
All quotes βEach of us has interests which conflict the interests of everybody else... 'everybody else' we call 'society'. It's a powerful opponent and it always wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it to his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage of numbers and of age.
B. F. SkinnerRead
No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been.
B. F. SkinnerRead
I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men.
B. F. SkinnerRead
The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone.
B. F. SkinnerRead
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.
B. F. SkinnerRead
Similar quotes
No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
Herbert SpencerRead
To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness.
Ivan TurgenevRead
Some people take the view that the universe is simply there, and it runs along - it's a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing. I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.
Roger PenroseRead
If we remain grotesquely unequal, we shall lose all sense of fraternity: and fraternity, for all its fatuity as a political objective, turns out to be the necessary condition of politics itself.
Tony JudtRead
The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.
Saul BellowRead
If what the heart approves conforms to proper patterns, then even if one's desires are many, what harm would they be to good order?
XunziRead