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Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.

B. F. Skinner

Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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Construction Problem Problem Solving
We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
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Angry Beginning Force Love Power Understand Weakness
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
Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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Education Learning Need Teaching
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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Happiness Man Production Skill
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
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Control Deep Different Way
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
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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Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
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
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
I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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Afraid Believe Death God Myself
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
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Explanation Justice Person Question See Understand
Men build society and society builds men.
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Architect Build Men Society
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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Avoid Learning Person Punishment Simplicity Way
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
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Book Education Inspirational Love Reading Teaching

Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.

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Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes