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A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.

B. F. Skinner

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.
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Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
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Accomplishment Education Fear Live Punishment Trouble
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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Freedom Happiness Human Illusion Necessary
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
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Difference Lying Men
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
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
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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Attitude Citizenship Destroy Loyalty Promise
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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Animal Learning Myself Teaching
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
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.
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Born Intelligence Man Moments Problem Solve
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.
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Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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Carry Important Positive Reality Way

A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.

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A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.

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