Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
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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To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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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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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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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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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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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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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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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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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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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.
B. F. SKINNER