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.
B. F. SKINNERSomehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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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.
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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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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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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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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
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But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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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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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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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.
B. F. SKINNER