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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

No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.
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Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
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
Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.
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Different People Trying
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
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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Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
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
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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Control Freedom Improvement Issues Men Mistake
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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Attitude Determination
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
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
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Achievement Book Education Greatness Love Reading Study Teacher
Men build society and society builds men.
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Architect Build Men Society
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
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Enjoyment Philosophy Science

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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