Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
B. F. SKINNERTo 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
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Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
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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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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 only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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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.
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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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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The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.
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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
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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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Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER