Herbert Spencer Quotes

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

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

They who employ force by proxy are as much responsible for that force as though they employed it themselves.

~ Herbert Spencer

Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.

~ Herbert Spencer

As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state—to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally selfevident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man’s property against his will, is an infringement of his rights.

~ Herbert Spencer

No man is equal to his book. All the best products of his mental activity go into his book, where they come separated from the mass of inferior products with which they are mingled in his daily talk.

~ Herbert Spencer

Time is that which man is always trying to kill but which ends in killing him.

~ 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

Science is organized knowledge.

~ Herbert Spencer

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

~ 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

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

~ 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

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

~ Herbert Spencer

Government is essentially immoral.

~ Herbert Spencer

All socialism involves slavery.

~ 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

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

~ Herbert Spencer

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

~ Herbert Spencer

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

~ Herbert Spencer

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

~ Herbert Spencer

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

~ 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