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.
B. F. SKINNERA 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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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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Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
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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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Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
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Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
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Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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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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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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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
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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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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.
B. F. SKINNER