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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.

B. F. Skinner

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
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
It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Enjoyment Life
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Avoid Learning Person Punishment Simplicity Way
The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNER

Born Breed Education Genius Men Production
A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
B. F. SKINNER

Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
B. F. SKINNER

Book Education Inspirational Love Reading Teaching
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Born Intelligence Man Moments Problem Solve
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
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Deep Different Way
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
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Determination
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
B. F. SKINNER

Attack Help Society

If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.

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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.

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Popular Authors

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