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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

B. F. Skinner

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

Attitude Judgement Person
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
The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
B. F. SKINNER

Born Breed Education Genius Men Production
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
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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Feeling Man Rule Talk
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
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.
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Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Control Government Leaving Source
Men build society and society builds men.
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Architect Build Men Society
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
The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
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Disturb Feeling Himself Intelligence Men Personality
Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
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Blame Born Education Failure Live Ourselves Understand Way Wrong
Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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Easy Education Improvement Men Moon School
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
A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
B. F. SKINNER

Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence

Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.

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