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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.

B. F. Skinner

The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Education Mystery Relationship Responsible Satisfaction Simplicity View
A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
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Cry Goodness Life Wait
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
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Difference Lying Men
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
It is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
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Control Freedom Improvement Issues Men Mistake
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.
B. F. SKINNER

Different People Trying
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
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
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
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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Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
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
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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Happiness Man Production Skill
Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
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Dignity Freedom People Punishment
Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER

Ideas Myself People Thinking Value

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More B. F. Skinner Quotes