Herbert Spencer

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

— Herbert Spencer

Every cause produces more than one effect.

— Herbert Spencer

All socialism involves slavery.

— Herbert Spencer

Education has for its object the formation of character.

— Herbert Spencer

Government is essentially immoral.

— Herbert Spencer

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

— Herbert Spencer

What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man.

— Herbert Spencer

Science is organized knowledge.

— Herbert Spencer

Love is life's end, but never ending. Love is life's wealth, never spent, but ever spending. Love's life's reward, rewarded in rewarding.

— Herbert Spencer

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one.

— Herbert Spencer

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.

— Herbert Spencer

Our lives are universally shortened by our ignorance.

— Herbert Spencer

An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature.

— Herbert Spencer

Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.

— Herbert Spencer

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one.

— Herbert Spencer

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

— Herbert Spencer

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.

— Herbert Spencer

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

— Herbert Spencer

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

— Herbert Spencer

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.

— Herbert Spencer

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced 'mirage'.

— Herbert Spencer

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

— Herbert Spencer

The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.

— Herbert Spencer

The more specific idea of Evolution now reached is - a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.

— Herbert Spencer

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.

— Herbert Spencer

Who indeed, after pulling off the coloured glasses of prejudice and thrusting out of sight his pet projects, can help seeing the folly of these endeavours to protect men against themselves? A sad population of imbeciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last.

— Herbert Spencer

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

— Herbert Spencer

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

— Herbert Spencer

A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.

— Herbert Spencer

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

— Herbert Spencer

Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.

— Herbert Spencer

When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion.

— Herbert Spencer

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

— Herbert Spencer

All socialism involves slavery.

— Herbert Spencer

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.

— Herbert Spencer

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

— Herbert Spencer

Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get uppermost.

— Herbert Spencer

Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.

— Herbert Spencer

We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.

— Herbert Spencer

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

— Herbert Spencer

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

— Herbert Spencer

Government is essentially immoral.

— Herbert Spencer

The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.

— Herbert Spencer

In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.

— Herbert Spencer

Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

— Herbert Spencer

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.

— Herbert Spencer

Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.

— Herbert Spencer

All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. Does a shrub dwindle in poor soil, or become sickly when deprived of light, or die outright if removed to a cold climate? it is because the harmony between its organization and its circumstances has been destroyed.

— Herbert Spencer

Evil perpetually tends to disappear.

— Herbert Spencer

Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberties by every other man.

— Herbert Spencer

Limiting the liberty of each by the like liberty of all, excludes a wide range of improper actions, but does not exclude certain other improper ones.

— Herbert Spencer

Equity knows no difference of sex. In its vocabulary the word man must be understood in a generic, and not in a specific sense.

— Herbert Spencer

Education has for its object the formation of character. To curb restive propensities, to awaken dormant sentiments, to strengthen the perceptions, and cultivate the tastes, to encourage this feeling and repress that, so as finally to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature — this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.

— Herbert Spencer

The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many "in shallows and in miseries," are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.

— Herbert Spencer

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.

— Herbert Spencer

Morality knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race.

— Herbert Spencer

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

— Herbert Spencer

Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief, they demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume that their own needs none.

— Herbert Spencer

Well, which is the most rational theory about these ten millions of species? Is it most likely that there have been ten millions of special creations? or is it most likely that, by continual modifications due to change of circumstances, ten millions of varieties have been produced, as varieties are being produced still?

— Herbert Spencer

Should the believers in special creations consider it unfair thus to call upon them to describe how special creations take place, I reply that this is far less than they demand from the supporters of the Development Hypothesis. They are merely asked to point out a conceivable mode. On the other hand, they ask, not simply for a conceivable mode, but for the actual mode.

— Herbert Spencer

Throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence of the kind... as the cause, these specific differences: an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in time, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes—an influence, which to all appearance, would produce in the millions of years, and under the great varieties of condition which geological records imply, any amount of change.

— Herbert Spencer

Surely if a single cell may, when subjected to certain influences, become a man in the space of twenty years; there is nothing absurd in the hypothesis that under certain other influences, a cell may, in the course of millions of years, give origin to the human race.

— Herbert Spencer

There can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, than upon practice and natural aptitude. A clear head, a quick imagination, and a sensitive ear, will go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless.

— Herbert Spencer

We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

— Herbert Spencer

Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.

— Herbert Spencer

The ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. One in whom the powers of expression fully responded to the state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety in the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands.

— Herbert Spencer

Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.

— Herbert Spencer

Every cause produces more than one effect.

— Herbert Spencer

The tyranny of Mrs. Grundy is worse than any other tyranny we suffer under.

— Herbert Spencer

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

— Herbert Spencer

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts — as the one which, more than any other, ministers to human welfare.

— Herbert Spencer

We too often forget that not only is there "a soul of goodness in things evil," but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.

— Herbert Spencer

The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have usually been wrong, must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.

— Herbert Spencer

Each new ontological theory, propounded in lieu of previous ones shown to be untenable, has been followed by a new criticism leading to a new scepticism. All possible conceptions have been one by one tried and found wanting; and so the entire field of speculation has been gradually exhausted without positive result: the only result reached being the negative one above stated, that the reality existing behind all appearances is, and must ever be, unknown.

— Herbert Spencer

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.

— Herbert Spencer

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

— Herbert Spencer

Evolution is definable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.

— Herbert Spencer

We have repeatedly observed that while any whole is evolving, there is always going on an evolution of the parts into which it divides itself; but we have not observed that this equally holds of the totality of things, which is made up of parts within parts from the greatest down to the smallest.

— Herbert Spencer

If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.

— Herbert Spencer

With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.

— Herbert Spencer

We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong.

— Herbert Spencer

The saying that beauty is but skin deep is but a skin-deep saying.

— Herbert Spencer

Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use.

— Herbert Spencer

Unlike private enterprise which quickly modifies its actions to meet emergencies — unlike the shopkeeper who promptly finds the wherewith to satisfy a sudden demand — unlike the railway company which doubles its trains to carry a special influx of passengers; the law-made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.

— Herbert Spencer

Strong as it looks at the outset, State-agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first stages, private efforts daily achieve results that astound the world.

— Herbert Spencer

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

— Herbert Spencer

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature — a type nowhere at present existing.

— Herbert Spencer

The primary use of knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all circumstances as shall make living complete. All other uses of knowledge are secondary.

— Herbert Spencer

Every pleasure raises the tide of life; every pain lowers the tide of life.

— Herbert Spencer

The essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.

— Herbert Spencer

The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.

— Herbert Spencer

If insistence on them tends to unsettle established systems … self-evident truths are by most people silently passed over; or else there is a tacit refusal to draw from them the most obvious inferences.

— Herbert Spencer

The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.

— Herbert Spencer

Originally, ethics has no existence apart from religion, which holds it in solution.

— Herbert Spencer

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts!

— Herbert Spencer

Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts of the phenomena of life at large. We have to deal with man as a product of evolution, with society as a product of evolution, and with moral phenomena as products of evolution.

— Herbert Spencer

As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.

— Herbert Spencer

Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

— Herbert Spencer

When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.

— Herbert Spencer

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

— Herbert Spencer

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

— Herbert Spencer

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

— Herbert Spencer

We too often forget that not only is there 'a soul of goodness in things evil,' but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.

— Herbert Spencer

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

— Herbert Spencer

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced 'mirage'.

— Herbert Spencer

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.

— Herbert Spencer

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

— Herbert Spencer

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

— Herbert Spencer

Science is organized knowledge.

— Herbert Spencer

Education has for its object the formation of character.

— Herbert Spencer

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.

— Herbert Spencer