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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

B. F. Skinner

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

Attitude Judgement Person
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. SKINNER

Education Forget Graduation Survive Teacher
If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
B. F. SKINNER

Consumer Future People Save World
…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B. F. SKINNER

Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Anxiety Death Myself Worry
We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
B. F. SKINNER

Book Education Inspirational Love Reading Teaching
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
B. F. SKINNER

Freedom Happiness Human Illusion Necessary
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
B. F. SKINNER

Difference Lying Men
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNER

Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
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

Education Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
B. F. SKINNER

Animal Learning Myself Teaching
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Born Intelligence Man Moments Problem Solve
Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
B. F. SKINNER

Important Talk
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER

Problem Reality Science Technology
Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
B. F. SKINNER

Creation Environment Himself History Poem Poet Production

When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.

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