A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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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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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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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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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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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It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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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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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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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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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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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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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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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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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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In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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