A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNERScience, 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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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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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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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.
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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.
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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
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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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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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Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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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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We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
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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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A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
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