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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.

B. F. Skinner

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
Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
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Important Talk
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
To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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Attitude Citizenship Destroy Loyalty Promise
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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Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
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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Action Inspirational Journey Start
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Control Government Leaving Source
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Acceptance Science Willing
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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Best Disappointment Mistake Perspective Quit Try
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.
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Different People Trying
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
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

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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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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