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Herbert Spencer
71 quotes
“Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Definitions, as quoted in The Dictionary of Essential Quotations (1983) by Kevin Goldstein-Jackson, p. 154
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Evil perpetually tends to disappear.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberties by every other man.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Morality knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That by any series of changes a protozoon should ever become a mammal, seems to those who are not familiar with zoology, and who have not seen how clear becomes the relationship between the simplest and the most complex forms when intermediate forms are examined, a very grotesque notion. Habitually, looking at things rather in their statical aspect than in their dynamical aspect, they never realize the fact that, by small increments of modification, any amount of modification may in time be generated.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are daily being thus produced. A tree differs from a seed immeasurably in every respect... Yet is the one changed in the course of a few years into the other: changed so gradually, that at no moment can it be said — Now the seed ceases to be, and the tree exists.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every cause produces more than one effect.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The tyranny of Mrs. Grundy is worse than any other tyranny we suffer under.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilization in little.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vol. I, Part III: The Evolution of Life, Ch. 3 : General Aspects of the Evolution Hypothesis; compare: "As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, / So many a million of ages have gone to the making …
“It cannot but happen that those individuals whose functions are most out of equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces, will be those to die; and that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces. But this survival of the fittest, implies multiplication of the fittest. Out of the fittest thus multiplied, there will, as before, be an overthrowing of the moving equilibrium wherever it presents the least opposing force to the new incident force.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Principles of Biology, Vol. I (1864), Part III: The Evolution of Life, Ch. 7: Indirect Equilibration
“With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Principles of Biology, Vol. II (1867), Part VI: Laws of Multiplication, ch. 8: Human Population in the Future
“We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The saying that beauty is but skin deep is but a skin-deep saying.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every pleasure raises the tide of life; every pain lowers the tide of life.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People ... become so preoccupied with the means by which an end is achieved, as eventually to mistake it for the end. Just as money, which is a means of satisfying wants, comes to be regarded by a miser as the sole thing to be worked for, leaving the wants unsatisfied; so the conduct men have found preferable because most conducive to happiness, has come to be thought of as intrinsically preferable: not only to be made a proximate end (which it should be), but to be made an ultimate end, to the exclusion of the true ultimate end.”
Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ethics (New York:1915), § 14, pp. 38-39
“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 (1820–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ethics (New York:1915), § 68, p. 187