“Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli”

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.

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.

An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.

The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.

The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.

The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.

Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.

We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’

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.

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.

That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.

What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.

Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?

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.

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.

I’ve spent my whole working life standing up for workers. Didn’t matter if it was the two trapped miners at Beaconsfield or professional netballers or indeed factory workers or construction workers.

Yes, there are constraints on the way the insiders use their power. There are ‘checks and balances,’ built into the constitution, for example.

For her, reading was directly linked to pleasure, not to knowledge or enigmas or constructions or verbal labyrinths.

The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.

Induction for deduction, with a view to construction.

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

Indeed there are powers in the small child that are far greater than is generally realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up, of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all – zero!

The Exxon Valdez spill triggered a swift and strong response that changed policies about shipping, about double-hulled construction. A number of laws came into place.