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" Reinforcement is being right. "
B. F. Skinner
Right
Reinforcement
Being
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" The people who control the condition in which we live have no reason to think beyond more than the next five or 10 years. "
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" The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone. "
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" Religions work for their own aggrandizement - strengthen the church and so on - and they use reinforcers of one kind or another to get obedience and so on from their communicants. "
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" No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. "
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" If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down. "
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" We have not yet seen what man can make of man. "
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" I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills. "
B. F. Skinner
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Words
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" I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me. "
B. F. Skinner
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" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "
B. F. Skinner
Contributions
Been
Scientific
" We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. "
B. F. Skinner
Teach
Books
Love
" I have to tell people that they are not responsible for their behavior. They're not creating it; they're not initiating anything. It's all found somewhere else. That's an awful lot to relinquish. "
B. F. Skinner
Responsible
Creating
People
" I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men. "
B. F. Skinner
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Military
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" I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of some intelligence or some organizing force that set up the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that ultimately generated stars, planets and life. "
B. F. Skinner
Space
Stars
Intelligence
" Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. "
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Early
Society
Individual
" What is sought can never produce the seeking. "
B. F. Skinner
Never
Sought
Produce
" Even the mundane task of washing dishes by hand is an example of the small tasks and personal activities that once filled people's daily lives with a sense of achievement. "
B. F. Skinner
Small
Task
Achievement
" I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed. "
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Look
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Think
" I'm very pessimistic. "
B. F. Skinner
Pessimistic
Very
" I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith. "
B. F. Skinner
College
Remember
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" Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions. "
B. F. Skinner
Culture
Now
Money
" If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment. "
B. F. Skinner
Age
You
Change
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Up
Decisions
Design
" Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. "
B. F. Skinner
Anything
Shape
Child
" I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture. "
B. F. Skinner
Mother
Culture
Think
" The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. "
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Think
Technology
Men
" I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control. "
B. F. Skinner
Totalitarian
Any
Control
" 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. "
B. F. Skinner
Trying
Mistake
Stop
" The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry. "
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Directing
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" When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it. "
B. F. Skinner
Study
Interesting
Everything
" You can get along very well in this world by simply coming up with a quantity of reasonably valid statements. "
B. F. Skinner
Along
World
You