All socialism involves slavery. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy anothers desires.
—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
Topics: Marriage
The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.
—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
Topics: Love
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 naturethis is alike the aim of parent and teacher.
—Herbert Spencer
People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.
—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
Reading is seeing by proxy.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Reading
Time is that which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Value of Time, Time, Time Management
The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Health
Aggression which is flagitious when committed by one, is not sanctioned when committed by a host.
—Herbert Spencer
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is contempt prior to examination.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Insults
In science the important thing is to modify and change one’s ideas as science advances.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Science
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
Topics: Evolution
Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Heroism
The tyrant is nothing but a slave turned inside out.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Perspective
The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Action, Great, Education, Act, Knowledge
Not education, but character, is man’s greatest need and man’s greatest safeguard.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Character
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
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Welfare
Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Friendship, Life and Living
It was remarked to me by the late Mr. Charles Roupell … that to play billiards well was a sign of an ill-spent youth.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Youth
When a man’s knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has, the greater will be his confusion.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Knowledge
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Law, Lawyers, Justice
A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Justice
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Questions, Information, Arguments, Wisdom, Ignorance
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
—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
Topics: Property
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
Topics: Government
Never educate a child to be a gentleman or lady only, but to be a man, a woman.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Education
Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.
—Herbert Spencer
Topics: Risk
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William Graham Sumner American Polymath
- John Stuart Mill English Philosopher, Economist
- Masanobu Fukuoka Japanese Buddhist Polymath
- Rabindranath Tagore Bengali Poet, Polymath
- Robert Anton Wilson American Polymath
- Leonardo da Vinci Italian Polymath
- Roger Bacon English Philosopher
- Francis Bacon English Philosopher
- Alfred North Whitehead English Mathematician, Philosopher
- John Ruskin English Art Critic
Leave a Reply