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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

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.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Freedom Improvement Issues Men Mistake
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
Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
B. F. SKINNER

Accomplishment Education Fear Live Punishment Trouble
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
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
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 consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
B. F. SKINNER

Act Chance Repeat
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
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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Deep Love Positive
Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Judgement Person
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
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
I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
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Decision Design Direction Education Life Myself Reality
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Attack Help Society
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Himself Men
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Determination
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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Happiness Man Production Skill
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
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Book Education Inspirational Love Reading Teaching
The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
B. F. SKINNER

Army Battle Fear People
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
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.
B. F. SKINNER

Himself Man Nature Past Understand World
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Affection Friendship Parents Problem Win
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 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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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