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.
B. F. SKINNERAt this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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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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At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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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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Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
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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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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
B. F. SKINNER







