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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.

B. F. Skinner

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
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Control Government Leaving Source
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Ideas Myself People Thinking Value
I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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Animal Learning Myself Teaching
What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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Deep Love Positive
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Attack Help Society
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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Happiness Man Production Skill
Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
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Creation Environment Himself History Poem Poet Production
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
Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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Attitude Judgement Person
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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Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
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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Himself Man Nature Past Understand World
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
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

Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.

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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.

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