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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.

B. F. Skinner

If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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Age Change Environment Try Yourself
Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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Deep Destruction Genius Mad Men
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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Education Forget Graduation Survive Teacher
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
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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Attitude Determination
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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Men Question Reality Technology Thinking
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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Feeling Man Rule Talk
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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Education Enjoyment Life
…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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Ignorance Position Virtue Willing
I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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Afraid Believe Death God Myself
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
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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Effort Greatness Invention Learning Man Pain Possible Reality Word World
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
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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Enjoyment Philosophy Science
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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Comfortable Dedication Development Production Science Technology

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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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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