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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

B. F. Skinner

Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. SKINNER

Happiness Man Production Skill
Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Acceptance Science Willing
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Deep Different Way
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.
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Anxiety Death Myself Worry
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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Action Inspirational Journey Start
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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Development Mathematics Nature Process Reading Violence
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
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Avoid Learning Person Punishment Simplicity Way
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
…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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Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
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Cry Goodness Life Wait
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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Animal Difference Learning People
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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Best Disappointment Mistake Perspective Quit Try
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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Animal Learning Myself Teaching
We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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Change Men Science See Transformation

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

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