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.
B. F. SKINNERThe juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
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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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I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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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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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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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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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 admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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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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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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…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. SKINNER