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.
B. F. SKINNERWe admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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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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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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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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In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.
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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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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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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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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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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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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 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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