A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNERWhen we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
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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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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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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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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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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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Men build society and society builds men.
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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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If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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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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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.
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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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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
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Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
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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.
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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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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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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
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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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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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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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