A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNERIt has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
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To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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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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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
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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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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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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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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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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
B. F. SKINNER







