The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
B. F. SKINNERDeath 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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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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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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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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If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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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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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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But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
B. F. SKINNER







