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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

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.
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Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
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
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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Comfortable Dedication Development Production 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.
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Himself Man Nature Past Understand World
I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
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Anxiety Death Myself Worry
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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Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
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Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
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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Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
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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Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
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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Admire Explanation Extent People Word
The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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Carry Important Positive Reality Way
Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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Deep Destruction Genius Mad 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
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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Action Inspirational Journey Start
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Control Government Leaving Source
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

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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