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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.

B. F. Skinner

Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
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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Children Deserve Economic Gift Goodness Love Quality Serve Woman World
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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Dignity Freedom People Punishment
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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Enjoyment Philosophy Science
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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Affection Friendship Parents Problem Win
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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Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
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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Born Intelligence Man Moments Problem Solve
A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
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Development Mathematics Nature Process Reading Violence
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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Absence Control Feeling Force Freedom
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
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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Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
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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Men Question Reality Technology Thinking

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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