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A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.

B. F. Skinner

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.
B. F. SKINNER

Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
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
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
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
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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Absence Control Feeling Force Freedom
Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
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Action Battle Boredom
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Attack Help Society
We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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Change Men Science See Transformation
Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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Deep Destruction Genius Mad Men
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
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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Explanation History Mindset Person Work
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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Choice Survive Value
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
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Feeling Man Rule Talk

A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.

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A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.

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Popular Authors

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