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. SKINNERTo say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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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.
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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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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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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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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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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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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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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
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Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
B. F. SKINNER