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.
B. F. SKINNERWe do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
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We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
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Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
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A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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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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Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
B. F. SKINNER







