Reinforcement Quotes

Some days I hit that wall really hard, and I have to tell myself that I don't believe that stuff anymore. That all the things in my brain, all the little voices whispering that I'm Doing It Wrong, this is just how hegemonies work: by continuous reinforcement; by convincing people that there is only one true way (or a handful of such); by promoting and valuing, over and over, the same narratives without thought to how harmful they can be. ~ Nalo Hopkinson

My silence was reward for you saying something intelligent. I'm a firm believer in positive reinforcement. ~ Sam Argent

We can see that there are many ways in which we actively contribute to our own experience of mental unrest and suffering. Although, in general, mental and emotional afflictions themselves can come naturally, often it is our own reinforcement of those negative emotions that makes them so much worse. For instance when we have anger or hatred towards a person, there is less likelihood of its developing to a very intense degree if we leave it unattended.


However, if we think about the projected injustices done to us, the ways in which we have been unfairly treated, and we keep on thinking about them over and over, then that feeds the hatred. It makes the hatred very powerful and intense. Of course, the same can apply to when we have an attachment towards a particular person; we can feed that by thinking about how beautiful he or she is, and as we keep thinking about the projected qualities that we see in the person, the attachment becomes more and more intense. But this shows how through constant familiarity and thinking, we ourselves can make our emotions more intense and powerful. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

The dichotomy is delicious. Inside the fantasy genre, I try to present women who need to solve real problems like having no voice in community, or no right to work; no access to capital to start a business. No reinforcement for talent. ~ Stella Atrium

Cats make one of the most satisfying sounds in the world: they purr. [ ... ] Almost all cats make us feel good about ourselves because they let us know they feel good about us, about themselves, and about our relationship with them. A purring cat is a form of high praise, like a gold star on a test paper. It is a reinforcement of soemthing we would all like to believe about ourselves
that we are nice. ~ Roger A. Caras

I didn't see it happening, but the wheels were falling off of me. I didn't care about responsibilities like paying rent, I was just on a runaway train ride. The horribly ironic cosmic trick of drug addiction is that drugs are a lot of fun when you first start using them, but by the time the consequences manifest themselves, you're no longer in a position to say, 'Whoa, gotta stop that.' You've lost that ability, and you've created this pattern of conditioning and reinforcement. It's never something for nothing when drugs are involved. ~ Anthony Kiedis

I believe in giving rewards and positive reinforcement for a job well done, but can we raise ourselves a little higher than the dogs and give rewards that have longer-term benefits? How can a poor food choice be a true reward anyway? ~ Jill Johnson

Michael Freeman was thirty-five years old – a former Special Forces soldier turned policeman. He was a tall and slim black man, with grey-flecked hair and dark almond-shaped eyes. His smile was tight-lipped – half knowing and half strategic. It hid a mouthful of craggy teeth. A childhood in Detroit's East Side with an aggressive, alcoholic father had taught him to play things close to his chest, to look and listen. His colleagues knew him as a patient thinker, sedulous, missing nothing given time. Intellectually savvy and emotionally guarded, he exuded certitude. In Afghanistan, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he spent several weeks as a mounted outlier with the Northern Alliance in the Alma Tak Mountains, beyond the range of reinforcement or rescue – drinking filtered ditchwater and eating nuts scavenged from corpses – and calling down massive airstrikes on Taliban positions. He gained a certain reputation. Word spread the length of the Darya Suf River valley, through the Tiangi Gap to the stronghold at Mazar-i-Sharif that there was a monster loose in the mountains and the Taliban called him 'bor-buka', which seemed to mean black or devil or whirlwind, and, at times, all of these things. ~ Simon Conway

Meditation is not supposed to be the fabrication or the reinforcement of some particular state, but simply the cultivation of the awareness of whatever is arising in the mind. ~ Thrangu Rinpoche

I find that I spend a tremendous amount of time chasing the praises of men rather than sitting with the praises of God. The former is something I attempt to catch, the latter catches me. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Teaching's hard! You need different skills: positive reinforcement, keeping students from getting bored, commanding their attention in a certain way. ~ Bill Gates

The heavy casualties, the constant retreat, the shortage of food and munitions, the difficulty of receiving reinforcements ... all this had a very bad effect on morale. Many longed to get across the Volga, to escape the hell of Stalingrad. ~ Vasily Chuikov

It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men. ~ Duke Of Wellington

As the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner proved in the laboratory, the human mind seeks relationships between events and often finds them even when they are not present. Slot-machines are based on Skinnerian principles of intermittent reinforcement. The dumb human, like the dumb rat, only needs an occasional payoff to keep pulling the handle. The mind will do the rest. ~ Michael Shermer

For black America needs a politics whose first mission isn't the reinforcement of the idea of black America; and a discourse of race that isn't centrally concerned with preserving the idea of race and racial unanimity. We need something we don't yet have: a way of speaking about black poverty that doesn't falsify the reality of black advancement; a way of speaking about black advancement that doesn't distort the enduring realities of black poverty. ~ Henry Louis Gates

So dream big daring dreams, and then underachieve a little bit each day. I recommend setting attainable daily goals that, when achieved, provide positive reinforcement to help you stay on the path to the big goal ~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

Wow, Johnny. I send you out for reinforcements and you come back with an old man, a nerd and this little hobbit guy. Great job. ~ Pittacus Lore

When you stop relying on aversive controls such as threats, intimidation, and punishment, and when you know how to use reinforcement to get not just the same but better results, your perception of the world undergoes a shift. You don't have to become a wimp. You don't have to give up being in charge. You lose nothing of yourself. You just see things you didn't see before. ~ Karen Pryor

I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn't all that important to me. ~ Lisa Alther

In one way or another, these fears echoed the beliefs of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who argued in The Communist Manifesto (1848) that governments in capitalist society were political extensions of the interests of business owners. "The executive of the state," they wrote, was "nothing more than a committee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."25 Over the following decades, scores of influential followers would advance various arguments that had in common a core theme. Marxists argued that the expansion of capitalism brought with it the reinforcement of class divisions and, through imperialism and the spread of finance capital around the world, the replication of these divisions both within countries and between them. ~ Moises Naim

Prune these alleged friends ruthlessly from your life. You need all the positive reinforcement you can get. You need friends who think you're fabulous, an angel in human shape, and a breath of springtime. ~ Cynthia Heimel

I found this deer toy that poops out candy. And so if I say, 'Cree, you have to go to bed right now. You will get a candy.' We've named the pooping deer 'Gus.' ... He gets a jelly bean. And it works. Positive reinforcement is the way to go. I'm learning things like that which help me be a better parent. ~ Tia Mowry

India can progress only by the reinforcement of the women. ~ Abhijit Naskar

We may regard totalitarianism as a process of the annihilation of individuality, but, in more fundamental terms, it is the annihilation, first, of those social relationships within which individuality develops. It is not the extermination of individuals that is ultimately desired by totalitarian rulers, for individuals in the largest number are needed by the new order. What is desired is the extermination of those social relationships which, by their autonomous existence, must always constitute a barrier to the achievement of the absolute political community. The individual alone is powerless. Individual will and memory, apart from the reinforcement of associative tradition, are weak and ephemeral. How well the totalitarian rulers know it. (…) To destroy or diminish the reality of the smaller areas of society, to abolish or restrict the range of cultural alternatives offered individuals by economic endeavor, religion, and kinship, is to destroy in time the roots of the will to resist despotism in its large forms. ~ Robert A. Nisbet

There is reinforcement in such familiar back-formations as Chinee from Chinese, Portugee from Portuguese. ~ H.L. Mencken

During the Weekly Tactical, there are two overriding goals: resolution of issues and reinforcement of clarity. Obstacles need to be identified and removed, and everyone needs to be on the same page. ~ Patrick Lencioni

Science needs more than just research to make progress. It depends on the mutual reinforcement of science, politics and economics. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

In our view any awareness is an increment to consciousness, an added light, a reinforcement of psychic coherence. Its swiftness or instantaneity can hide this growth from us. But there is a growth of being in every instance of awareness. Consciousness is in itself an act, the human act. ~ Gaston Bachelard

Love is intermittent reinforcement with spouses and children alike. The child is love-bombed when the narcissist feels the child reflects their false self. The moment the child fails to do so, the narcissistic parent blithely discards them. ~ M. Wakefield

Long-term, we must begin to build our internal strengths. It isn't just skills like computer technology. It's the old-fashioned basics of self-reliance, self-motivation, self-reinforcement, self-discipline, self-command. ~ Steven Pressfield

Sabanci has many years of experience in the tire reinforcement industry, and we are committed to the success of this business through an advanced technology relationship with KoSa and a strong commitment to our customers. ~ Guler Sabanci

Knowing European manhood's boundaries to be porous and needing reinforcement, and meeting Indigenous possibilities that threw such boundaries into question, early conquerors invoked berdache as if assigning a failure to differentiate sex to Indigenous people, but they did so to define sexual normativity for them all. Thus, if colonial observers invoked berdache to mark Indigenous difference, the aim was to teach both colonial and Indigenous subjects the relational terms of colonial heteropatriarchy. ~ Scott L. Morgensen

Sam gave Captain Suicide a droll stare. How did you die again? Oh wait, I know this. 'I can take 'em. I don't need to wait for reinforcements. I can do it myself.' How'd that work out for you again? ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

When you give meaning to even the most meaningless of things around you, you will always stand to be taught something new, have what you already know reinforced, or be reminded of what you've forgotten. ~ A.J. Darkholme

I will be unneeded, and gladly so, when you realize that the vitality and reinforcement and joy are your own, and rise from the fountain of your own beings; when you realize that you do not need me for protection, for there is nothing you need protect yourself against. ~ Jane Roberts

Carrot-and-stick reinforcement' the behaviorists are telling us is needed for this bird to carry out these operations, thirteen different types of construction jobs? B. F. Skinner did a very good thing: in World War ~ William Peter Blatty

How long can news function as a palliative for despair and counter space for products? It is so frustrating and sad to open a newspaper and find the news literally at the edges, like the embroidered hem of the real subject – advertisement. The media spectacle must not continue to direct its attention to the manufacture of consent, rather than debate with more than two sides, to the reinforcement of untruths, and a review of what else there is to buy. ~ Toni Morrison

The attitude that psychologists call inflation and the traditional lore of Cabalistic magic, borrowing a term from religion, calls spiritual pride is one of the most serious dangers of this work.

Those who enter the path of magic with too great an appetite for flattery or too strong a need for ego reinforcement will very likely find these things, but they are also rather too likely to find fanaticism, megalomania and mental breakdown along the same route. The thing has happened far too often in the history of magic in the West. ~ John Michael Greer

So what's all the fuss?" he asked instead. "Where's all the shit coming from?"
Dean told him. He tried to make it concise, using flash words such as "fire" and "conspiracy" and "big
freakin' shape-shifter," and told Roland, too, about Miri and Robert and Kevin. The red jade.
"You're both fucked," Roland said. "Seriously. I'll start arranging the funeral now."
"I want a happy boss. Where's the positive reinforcement?"
"Buried with Pollyanna in my backyard. Which is where you'll be if you don't play your cards right. ~ Marjorie M. Liu

We live in a largely addictive society that continues to reinforce the defenses we learned as children; this reinforcement comes in the form of a negative social pressure to soothe ourselves, to try to obtain instant gratification ... Many people who suffered deprivation in childhood continue to accept substitute gratifications in the forms of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, television, video games, overwork, and other activities that distract them from experiencing their real lives. ~ Lisa Firestone

If you change your words to positive reinforcement, the negative reactions will lose their power ~ Bluenscottish

We cannot learn something new and stick to it without a modular approach to application, positive reinforcement and a real change of environment. ~ David Amerland

Hermione," Harry said seriously, as he started to dig down into the red-velvet pouch again, "don't punish yourself when a bright idea doesn't work out. You've got to go through a lot of flawed ideas to find one that might work. And if you send your brain negative feedback by frowning when you think of a flawed idea, instead of realizing that idea-suggesting is good behavior by your brain to be encouraged, pretty soon you won't think of any ideas at all." Harry put down two heart-shaped chocolates beside the book. "Here, have another chocolate. Besides the one from earlier, I mean. This one is to reinforce your brain for generating a good candidate strategy. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

Peacekeeping there is still just totally ineffective. The UN is now saying they are sending reinforcements in the area, but I have no particular reason to believe that they will be any stronger than the force there. In Southern Kordofan, it's mostly an Egyptian battalion, and that's really problematic because the population already doesn't trust the Egyptians; they think they're on payroll of the north. So we already have a force that is seen as compromised. ~ Rebecca Hamilton

I've been dealt a fuller set of cards than the ones passed to Lily and Daisy. They're just as strong, if not stronger. I've always been here as extra reinforcement, and however old we become, however gray we are, that won't ever change. ~ Krista Ritchie

The secret of literature, which conventional people don't guess, is that writers are forever looking for the surprising revelation - not for reinforcement of collective wisdom. ~ Carol Bly

It is proper Netiquette to provide positive reinforcement, feedback, for posts we Like. ~ David Chiles

The secret is that everything is always on the line. The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the boardroom, at the exam, the operating table, the big stage. If we have any hope of attaining excellence, let alone of showing what we've got under pressure, we have to be prepared by a lifestyle of reinforcement. Presence must be like breathing. ~ Josh Waitzkin

I suppose people who graduate from very selective and expensive colleges, and receive immense reinforcement from colleagues who preceded them there, develop an inflated sense of their ability to effectively manage things, especially complex things. Many of these young, bright people cannot believe that our creaking and foundering systems won't yield to their managerial tinkering, and the net effect must be to turn them into very cynical careerists with nothing left but personal ladder-climbing and wealth accumulation ... The political left in America makes up in cynical cowardly avarice for all the mendacious stupidity on the political right, so we end up at this moment in history with a perfect blend of every bad impulse in human nature and none of the virtues. ~ James Howard Kunstler

To dehumanize another human being is not merely to declare that someone is not human, and it does not happen by accident. It is a process, a programming. It takes energy and reinforcement to deny what is self-evident in another member of one's own species. ~ Isabel Wilkerson

I came across an article recently that reported how growing numbers of employers today complain that many young job applicants exhibit all thesigns of having been
there's no other word for it
SPOILED. These young people feel entitled to jobs and salaries they haven't earned. They have unrealistic views of their own capabilities. They don't take criticism well, and they demand lots of attention and guidance from their employres. They "were raised with so much affirmation and positive reinforcement that they come into the workplace needy for more," said one manager. ~ Sarah Palin

I gathered all of the Jewish mukhtars, who have contact with Arabs in different villages and asked them to whisper in the ears of some Arabs that a great Jewish reinforcement has arrived in Galile and that it is going to burn all of the villages of the Huleh. They should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, to escape while there is still time ... The tactic reached its goal completely. The building of the police station at Halsa fell into our hands without a shot. The wide areas were cleaned ... ~ Yigal Allon

The Government set the stage economically by informing everyone that we were in a depression period, with very pointed allusions to the 1930s. The period just prior to our last 'good' war. ... Boiled down, our objective was to make killing and military life seem like adventurous fun, so for our inspiration we went back to the Thirties as well. It was pure serendipity. Inside one of the Scripter offices there was an old copy of Doc Smith's first LENSMAN space opera. It turned out that audiences in the 1970s were more receptive to the sort of things they scoffed at as juvenilia in the 1930s. Our drugs conditioned them to repeat viewings, simultaneously serving the ends of profit and positive reinforcement. The movie we came up with stroked all the correct psychological triggers. The fact that it grossed more money than any film in history at the time proved how on target our approach was.'

'Oh my God... said Jonathan, his mouth stalling the open position.

'Six months afterward we ripped ourselves off and got secondary reinforcement onto television. We pulled a 40 share. The year after that we phased in the video games, experimenting with non-narcotic hypnosis, using electrical pulses, body capacitance, and keying the pleasure centers of the brain with low voltage shocks. Jesus, Jonathan, can you *see* what we've accomplished? In something under half a decade we've programmed an entire generation of warm bodies to go to war for us and love it. They buy what ~ David J. Schow

Positive reinforcement generates more behavior than is minimally required. We call this discretionary effort, and its presence in the workplace is the only way an organization can maximize performance. ~ Aubrey Daniels

It took both of them to force her to feed from other than Mikhail. She resisted for a moment. For our child, little one, Mikhail whispered softly, lovingly, bending her will to his. You must do this for our child.
Gregori added his own reinforcement. I have never asked anything of you, Raven, of our friendship. This I ask. ~ Christine Feehan

The way you engage someone's pain either reinforces their pain or helps to release it. ~ Bryant McGill

Control is an unavoidable feature of human relationships; all that actually varies is the subtlety of the system of reinforcement. ~ Alfie Kohn

In building the helping relationship, encouragement - via positive reinforcement - certainly seems appropriate. But if it is not sensitively handled, such encouragement can quickly become patronizing and insulting. My ~ Edgar H Schein

Jose unfroze and began looking around the room, picking up knickknacks and checking titles on the bookshelf. The parrot cracked pistachios and watched him.
"Dickhead," the parrot said.
I gave the bird some more nuts. I believe in positive reinforcement. ~ Rick Riordan

Or consider the fact that after people buy a new car, they often love to read advertisements that speak enthusiastically about the same car that they have just obtained. Those advertisements tend to be comforting because they confirm the wisdom of the decision to purchase that particular car. If you are a member of a particular political party or have strong convictions, you might want support, reinforcement, and ammunition, not criticism. ~ Cass R. Sunstein

Instead of yelling and spanking, which don't work anyway, I believe in finding creative ways to keep their attention - turning things into a game, for instance. And, when they do something good, positive reinforcement and praise. ~ Patricia Richardson

The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called 'conditioning'. In operant conditioning we 'strengthen' an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent. ~ B.F. Skinner

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State. ~ Albert Camus

I think there's a danger in how we can get addicted to the things that reaffirm to us who we are. For example, Facebook; people who make these Facebook posts about what's happening to them, just so people will chime in and give them positive reinforcement. ~ Carrie Coon

My mum will always come and see my shows if she can, and if she can't, she'll text or email just before wishing me a great show and telling me how much she loves me. She still gives tonnes of positive reinforcement and love. It's really remarkable what that does for a child, and it's really remarkable what that does for me as an adult. ~ Rain Phoenix

Random intermittent positive reinforcement can be found in gambling... and bad relationships. ~ Jose N Harris

Science and religion stand watch over different aspects of all our major flashpoints. May they do so in peace and reinforcement--and not like the men who served as a cannon fodder in World War I, dug into the trenches of a senseless and apparently interminable conflict, while lobbing bullets and canisters of poison gas at a supposed enemy, who, like any soldier, just wanted to get off the battlefield and on with a potentially productive and rewarding life. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

Parental efforts to gain leverage generally take two forms: bribery or coercion. If a simple direction such as "I'd like you to set the table" doesn't do, we may add an incentive, for example, "If you set the table for me, I'll let you have your favorite dessert." Or if it isn't enough to remind the child that it is time to do homework, we may threaten to withdraw some privilege. Or we may add a coercive tone to our voice or assume a more authoritarian demeanor. The search for leverage is never-ending: sanctions, rewards, abrogation of privileges; the forbidding of computer time, toys, or allowance; separation from the parent or separation from friends; the limitation or abolition of television time, car privileges, and so on and so on.

It is not uncommon to hear someone complain about having run out of ideas for what still might remain to be taken away from the child. As our power to parent decreases, our preoccupation with leverage increases. Euphemisms abound: bribes are called variously rewards, incentives, and positive reinforcement; threats and punishments are rechristened warnings, natural consequences, and negative reinforcements; applying psychological force is often referred to as modifying behavior or teaching a lesson. These euphemisms camouflage attempts to motivate the child by external pressure because his intrinsic motivation is deemed inadequate.

Attachment is natural and arises from within; leverage is contrived and imposed from witho ~ Gabor Mate

The psyche's job is to keep us blissfully ignorant of who we are, what we think, and how we'll behave in any situation. We're all operating in a dense fog of mutual reinforcement. Our thoughts are shaped primarily by legacy hardware that evolved to assume that everyone else must be right. But even when the fog is pointed out, we're no better at navigating through it. ~ Richard Powers

In games, we know who has won ... You get the reinforcement for having played well. ~ Michael A. Stackpole

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. ~ B.F. Skinner

The take-home message: Even if you achieve only intermittent reinforcement - that is, you experience success only sometimes - having some successes will make your behavior much more resilient, and you'll be less likely to give up. Therefore, whenever you start something, focus on getting your first few successes. ~ Alice Boyes

We know that negative reinforcement or punishment works well for behavior that should be eliminated. And we know from feedback theory that the best kind of feedback is descriptive because the client can then make the evaluation. These are valid guidelines but they don't solve some of the subtle issues that can arise in the relationship. ~ Edgar H Schein

He stopped the flyers
And by his rare example made the coward
Turn terror into sport. As weeds before
A vessel under sail, so men obeyed
And fell below his stem. His sword, Death's stamp,
Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered
The mortal gate o' th' city, which he painted
With shunless destiny; aidless came off
And with a sudden reinforcement struck
Corioles like a planet. Now all's his,
When by and by the dim of war gan pierce
His ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit
Requickened what in flesh was fatigate,
And to the battle came he, where he did
Run reeking o'er the lives of men as if
'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we called
Both field and city ours, he never stood
To ease his breast with panting. ~ William Shakespeare

For 360 minutes per diem, we receive unconscious reinforcement of the deep thesis that the most significant feature of truly alive persons is watchableness, and that genuine human worth is not just identical with but rooted in the phenomenon of watching. ~ David Foster Wallace

I've felt that if you dwell too much on your errors, you're dealing in the negativity of things. I don't like that. I'd rather work on the positive reinforcement, the things I did well. ~ Hale Irwin

That struck a chord with me, because I know how important it is to look into the eyes of an audience when I'm giving a talk. I don't just scan the audience; I catch the eye of individual people and hold their gaze for a few seconds. When I do that, something happens between us. I'm actually talking to someone, not just saying the words I've prepared, and as a result something changes in my tone of voice. It becomes more personal and direct. And I get reinforcement from the warmth I see in the faces. ~ Alan Alda

Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasisshould be place on appreciation
reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts. ~ Lilian Katz

If I announce the armistice and the Americans don't send sufficient reinforcements and don't land near Rome, the Germans will seize the city and put in a puppet fascist government. ~ Pietro Badoglio

For men, professional success comes with positive reinforcement at every step of the way. For women, even when they're recognized for their achievements, they're often regarded unfavorably. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

The offspring cannot rely on its parents for disinterested guidance. One expects the offspring to be preprogrammed to resist some parental manipulation while being open to other forms. When the parent imposes an arbitrary system of reinforcement (punishment and reward) in order to manipulate the offspring to act against its own best interests, selection will favor offspring that resist such schedules of reinforcement. ~ Robert Trivers

Positive reinforcement changes behavior for the better, while criticism stabilizes negative behaviors and blocks change. ~ Virginia H. Pearce

That's how I am as a director - if somebody does a really good take, I can't help it, I'm not even aware of it. Actors really, really need positive reinforcement. ~ Cameron Crowe

I had a very marginal understanding of what faith in God was growing up because, although I went to a Catholic school, without having parents who really were actively involved in faith there was no reinforcement of it. So, as a result of that I guess I just kind of thought that God was somebody that you put in a box and you put Him on a shelf and you called on him when you had crises. ~ Patricia Mauceri

My fear is you have to be careful as a writer to not get caught up in social media and blogging, because it can start to feed into your writing time. When you are writing a book, it's such a long journey where the payoff is way at the end, sometimes years away. The payoff of the blog post is today. You get the reinforcement, comments or "likes" immediately. It's appealing. You have to be patient with the book. ~ Matt De La Pena

Making promises to myself, in my personal writing practice, has been important to me all my life. In practical application it is so much easier for me to make promises to others, and keep them, than it is to make promises to myself. "Why is that?" and the answer I gave myself is that in making promises to others I create a model of accountability and reinforcement. I duplicate that in my writing and have grown increasingly better at making and keeping promises to myself. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

I want to own a network. I want to own a network where you can turn it on with your family all day long and get positive reinforcement. ~ Tyler Perry

The economic system founded on isolation is a circular production of isolation. The technology is based on isolation, and the technical process isolates in turn. From the automobile to television, all the goods selected by the spectacular system are also its weapons for a constant reinforcement of the conditions of isolation of 'lonely crowds.' . . .
'With the present means of long-distance mass communication, sprawling isolation has proved an even more effective method of keeping a population under control,' says Lewis Mumford in The City in History, describing 'henceforth a one-way world.' But the general movement of isolation, which is the reality of urbanism, must also include a controlled reintegration of workers depending on the needs of production and consumption that can be planned. Integration into the system requires that isolated individuals be recaptured and isolated together: factories and halls of culture, tourist resorts and housing developments are expressly organized to serve this pseudo-community that follows the isolated individual right into the family cell. The widespread use of receivers of the spectacular message enables the individual to fill his isolation with the dominant images―images which derive their power precisely from this isolation. ~ Guy Debord

Consult ... /what reinforcement we may gain from hope,/If not, what resolution from despair. ~ John Milton

With constant repetition and reinforcement, new habits are easily formed. ~ Marshall Sylver

In the non-material scenario, both temple or total quality gets raised, deploying communication as mortar, culture as reinforcement, and commitment as concrete. ~ Priyavrat Thareja

Love may be nothing more than a complex interaction of hormones, conditioned behavior, and positive reinforcement, but try writing a poem or song about that. ~ Rick Yancey

This is two romantic things in a row, so I figure I should praise him accordingly, because the boy responds well to positive reinforcement. ~ Jenny Han

We can achieve a sort of control under which the controlled, though they are following a code much more scrupulously than was ever the case under the old system, nevertheless feel free. They are doing what they want to do, not what they are forced to do. That's the source of the tremendous power of positive reinforcement
there's no restraint and no revolt. By careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave
the motives, desires, the wishes. ~ B.F. Skinner

When one speaks of religion influencing public policy, the immediate question is, Whose religion? If one subscribes to the notion that this is in some sense a Christian society, then the question becomes, Whose Christianity? Without some basic agreement religiously, the entrance of religion into the public arena would seem to be a formula for open-ended conflict and possible anarchy.

Yet, in the absence of a public ethic, we arrive at that point where, in Alisdair MacIntyre's arresting phrase, "politics becomes civil war carried on by other means." MacIntyre believes that we have already reached that point, and he may be right. A major problem, however, is that a public ethic cannot be reestablished unless it is informed by religiously grounded values. . . .

It is important to note that, unlike Rousseau, for example, the founders thought the conventional religions could manage this role of ancillary reinforcement. They did not think it necessary to construct a new "civil religion" for the maintenance of republican virtue. ~ Richard John Neuhaus

Allah set Hajj for the consolidation and reinforcement of the religion. ~ Fatima Bint Muhammad

People thrive on positive reinforcement. They can take only a certain amount of criticism and you may lose them altogether if you criticize them in a personal way ... you can make a point without being personal. Don't insult or belittle your people. Instead of getting more out of them you will get less ~ Bill Walsh

Feedback loops, echo chambers, circular reinforcement. All could play a part in escalating the utterly imaginary to the level of reality, sometimes with fatal consequences. ~ Jasper Fforde

You always remember the things that rub you the right way or the wrong way. The positive and negative are both powerful memory reinforcement tools. Negative is more powerful than positive, which is based on your survival instincts. But you can't remember something that doesn't touch you in a positive or negative way. And this is our ultimate goal. We must learn from the wallflowers, life's most perfect unintentional losers. ~ Shane Kuhn

The idea here is that childhood lies are not just a phase of harmless delinquency we pass smoothly through, but the first in a series of test runs for self-serving dishonesty. Through positive reinforcement (for undetected and fruitful lies) and negative reinforcement (for lies that peers uncover, or through the reprimand of kin) we learn what we can and can't get away with, and what our kin do and don't consider judicious deceit. ~ Robert Wright