A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNERWhen we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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Men build society and society builds men.
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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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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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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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A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
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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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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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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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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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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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I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
B. F. SKINNER







