When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNERThe simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of “winning friends.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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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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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 real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
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A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
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I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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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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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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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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