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No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.

B. F. Skinner

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. SKINNER

Happiness Man Production Skill
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
B. F. SKINNER

Cry Goodness Life Wait
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.
B. F. SKINNER

Age Country Enjoy
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
B. F. SKINNER

Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNER

Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
B. F. SKINNER

Creation Environment Himself History Poem Poet Production
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SKINNER

Choice Survive Value
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Determination
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER

Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Different People Trying
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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Education Forget Graduation Survive Teacher
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Absence Control Feeling Force Freedom
A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
B. F. SKINNER

Comfortable Dedication Development Production Science Technology
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
B. F. SKINNER

Angry Beginning Force Love Power Understand Weakness
The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
B. F. SKINNER

Disturb Feeling Himself Intelligence Men Personality
…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. SKINNER

Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNER

Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Himself Man Nature Past Understand World
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Important Talk
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Best Disappointment Mistake Perspective Quit Try

No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.

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No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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