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A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

B. F. Skinner

Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Acceptance Science Willing
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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Born Breed Education Genius Men Production
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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Education Enjoyment Life
The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of “winning friends.
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Affection Friendship Parents Problem Win
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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Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
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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Difference Lying Men
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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Happiness Man Production Skill
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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Age Change Environment Try Yourself
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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Important Talk
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
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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Act Chance Repeat
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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Disturb Feeling Himself Intelligence Men Personality
Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.
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Acceptance Education Honesty Intellectual Value
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
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Change Effort Mindset Violence

A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

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A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

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Popular Authors

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