Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.
B. F. SKINNERWe shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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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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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
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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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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.
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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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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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I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER