Herbert Spencer Quotes

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

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

The society exists for the benefit of its members; not its members for the benefit of the society.

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.

All Socialism involves slavery.

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

This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

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

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

A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited.

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

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

To play billiards well was a sign of an ill-spent youth

Education is preparation to live completely.

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

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

The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control.

Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity…It is a part of nature.

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.

Science is organized knowledge.

To play billiards well is the sign of a misspent youth.

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

Only when Genius is married to Science can the highest results be produced.

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

Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions.

Mental power cannot be got from ill-fed brains.

Reading is seeing by proxy.

All socialism involves slavery. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy anothers desires.

The defects of the children mirror the defects of the parents.

We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.

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.

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

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

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

Policeman are soldiers who act alone; soldiers are policeman who act in unison.

Government is essentially immoral.

No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

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

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

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

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.

The home is the most important factor in civilization, and that civilization is to be measured at different stages largely by the development in the home.

A nation's institutions and beliefs are determined by it's character.

Education has for its object the formation of character.

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

Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man.

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

No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts.