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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

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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Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Control Deep Different Way
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 failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
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
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
If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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Consumer Future People Save World
Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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Construction Problem Problem Solving
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Control Deep Different Way
…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
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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Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
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
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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