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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

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
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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Change Destroy Fashion Process Style Worth
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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Act Chance Repeat
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
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
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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Consumer Future People Save World
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
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
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Explanation Justice Person Question See Understand
Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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Easy Education Improvement Men Moon School
The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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Born Breed Education Genius Men Production
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
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
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
An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
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Abuse Deep Education Important Listening Mental Skin Talk Violence
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.
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Important Talk
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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