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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.

B. F. Skinner

We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
B. F. SKINNER

Angry Beginning Force Love Power Understand Weakness
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
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Consumer Future People Save World
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Learning Need Teaching
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNER

Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Determination
Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Judgement Person
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Best Disappointment Mistake Perspective Quit Try
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. SKINNER

Choice Survive Value
Men build society and society builds men.
B. F. SKINNER

Architect Build Men Society
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

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

Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
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.
B. F. SKINNER

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

Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
B. F. SKINNER

Acceptance Science Willing
We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
B. F. SKINNER

Admire Explanation Extent People Word
Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
B. F. SKINNER

Education End Simplicity
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
To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Citizenship Destroy Loyalty Promise
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Government Leaving Source
A 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.
B. F. SKINNER

Explanation History Mindset Person Work
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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Animal Difference Learning People
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
B. F. SKINNER

Children Education Himself Myself
The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Education Mystery Relationship Responsible Satisfaction Simplicity View

A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.

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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.

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