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.
B. F. SKINNERExcept when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
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A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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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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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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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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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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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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A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
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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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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
B. F. SKINNER