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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.

B. F. Skinner

If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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Freedom Happiness Human Illusion Necessary
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
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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Best Disappointment Mistake Perspective Quit Try
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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Animal Difference Learning People
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
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
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
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Change Effort Mindset Violence
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
Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.
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Acceptance Education Honesty Intellectual Value
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
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 Failure Give Up Inspirational Mistake Perseverance Reality Stop Try
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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Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
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Education Enjoyment Life
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Control Government Leaving Source
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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Animal Learning Myself Teaching

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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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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Popular Authors

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