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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.'
B. F. Skinner -
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
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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. Skinner -
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.
B. F. Skinner -
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.
B. F. Skinner -
It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
B. F. Skinner -
Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.
B. F. Skinner -
The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us - here and now.
B. F. Skinner
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The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
B. F. Skinner -
Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code - a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren't any right people.
B. F. Skinner -
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.
B. F. Skinner -
Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
B. F. Skinner -
The world's a poor standard. any society which is free of hunger and violence looks bright against that background.
B. F. Skinner -
Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.
B. F. Skinner
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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.
B. F. Skinner -
The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... a man may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
B. F. Skinner -
Does a poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories?
B. F. Skinner -
If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
B. F. Skinner -
The evolution of cultures appears to follow the pattern of the evolution of species. The many different forms of culture which arise correspond to the "mutations" of genetic theory. Some forms prove to be effective under prevailing circumstances and others not, and the perpetuation of the culture is determined accordingly.
B. F. Skinner -
Punitive measures whether administered by police, teachers, spouses or parents have well known standard effects: (1) escape-education has its own name for that: truancy, (2) counterattack-vandalism on schools and attacks on teachers, (3) apathy-a sullen do-nothing withdrawal. The more violent the punishment, the more serious the by-products.
B. F. Skinner
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The problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all.
B. F. Skinner -
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 human species took a crucial step forward when its vocal musculature came under operant control in the production of speech sounds. Indeed, it is possible that all the distinctive achievements of the species can be traced to that one genetic change.
B. F. Skinner -
The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of "winning friends.
B. F. Skinner