To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNERWe admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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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.
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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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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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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.
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Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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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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Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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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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Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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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.
B. F. SKINNER