We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
B. F. SKINNER…not everyone is willing to defend a position of ‘not knowing.’ There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Men build society and society builds men.
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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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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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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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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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Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.
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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
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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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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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It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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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. SKINNER