The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of “winning friends.
B. F. SKINNERI 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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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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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
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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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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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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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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.
B. F. SKINNER -
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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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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…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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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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Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.
B. F. SKINNER







