Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNERYour 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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.
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The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
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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 way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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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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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of “winning friends.
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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.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
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The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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