Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. SKINNERThe problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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.
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At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
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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.
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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.
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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
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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.
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We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
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The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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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.
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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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