A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. SKINNERThose 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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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 way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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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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That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
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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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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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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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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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Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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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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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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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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The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.
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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
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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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A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he’s often sure he can find one. And that’s a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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