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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

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
Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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Education Learning Need Teaching
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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Avoid Learning Person Punishment Simplicity Way
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

Consumer Future People Save World
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
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
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
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
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
Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
B. F. SKINNER

Education End Simplicity
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
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.
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Action Inspirational Journey Start
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
In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
B. F. SKINNER

Children Deserve Economic Gift Goodness Love Quality Serve Woman World
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

Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
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

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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