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.
B. F. SKINNERThe real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.
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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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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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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.
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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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The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
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I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
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I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
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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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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 only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
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