An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
B. F. SKINNERThat’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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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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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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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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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 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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Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.
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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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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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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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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. SKINNER







