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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

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B. F. Skinner
Age: 86 †
Born: 1904
Born: March 20
Died: 1990
Died: August 18
Autobiographer
Ethologist
Inventor
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Susquehanna Depot
Pennsylvania
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Skinner BF
moiksu moiii
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Freedom
Free
Force
Objectionable
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Restraint
Lacking
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More quotes by B. F. Skinner

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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.
B. F. Skinner
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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
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Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
B. F. Skinner
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To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. Skinner
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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
B. F. Skinner
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Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd, and the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are abandoned.
B. F. Skinner
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
B. F. Skinner
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Fame is also won at the expense of others. Even the well-deserved honors of the scientist or man of learning are unfair to many persons of equal achievements who get none. When one man gets a place in the sun, the others are put in a denser shade. From the point of view of the whole group there's no gain whatsoever, and perhaps a loss.
B. F. Skinner
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Many social practices essential to the welfare of the species involve the control of one person by another, and no one can suppress them who has any concern for human achievements
B. F. Skinner
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A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
B. F. Skinner
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Any single historical event is too complex to be adequately known by anyone. It transcends all the intellectual capacities of men. Our practice is to wait until a sufficient number of details have been forgotten. Of course things seem simpler then! Our memories work that way we retain the facts which are easiest to think about.
B. F. Skinner
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. Skinner
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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 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
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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
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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
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The extent to which human aggression exemplifies innate tendencies is not clear.
B. F. Skinner
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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
B. F. Skinner
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I don't believe in God, so I'm not afraid of dying.
B. F. Skinner
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I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn't given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
B. F. Skinner