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Herbert Spencer Quotes (1820-1903)
Physicist, Philosopher, Poet
About Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 β 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. He developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He is known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest".
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Herbert Spencer quotes.
βEvil perpetually tends to disappear.β
βEvery cause produces more than one effect.β
βHow often misused words generate misleading thoughts!β
βVolumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.β
βMorality knows nothing of geographical boundaries, or distinctions of race.β
βWith a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.β
βTime: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.β
βThe universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.β
βThe ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.β
βOld forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.β
βWe have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong.β
βArchitecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.β
βEquity knows no difference of sex. In its vocabulary the word man must be understood in a generic, and not in a specific sense.β
βThe essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.β
βThe 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.β
βEvolution is definable as a change from an incoherent homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.β
Herbert Spencer Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Herbert Spencer quotes by topic.
Herbert Spencer on Atheism 4 quotes
βPassing over the consideration of credibility, and confining ourselves to that of conceivability, we see that Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism, when rigorously analyzed, severally prove to be absolutely unthinkable.β
Herbert Spencer on Education 4 quotes
βEducation 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 natureβthis is alike the aim of parent and teacher.β
Herbert Spencer on Evolution 3 quotes
View all 3 quotes on Evolution →Herbert Spencer on Results
βEvery unpunished delinquency has a family of delinquencies.β
Herbert Spencer on Beauty
Herbert Spencer on Good and evil
Herbert Spencer on Perfection
βNo 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.β
Herbert Spencer on Slavery
Herbert Spencer on Utopia
βNo 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.β
Herbert Spencer on Action
βRightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight line.β
What Herbert Spencer Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Herbert Spencer shared regarding contemporaries.
Herbert Spencer on Attila
βAttila conceived himself to have a divine claim to the dominion of the earth: β the Spaniards subdued the Indians under plea of converting them to Christianity; hanging thirteen refractory ones in honour of Jesus Christ and his apostles: and we English justify our colonial aggressions by saying that the Creator intends the Anglo-Saxon race to people the world!β
Quotes About Herbert Spencer
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Herbert Spencer from others.
J. Doyne Farmer on Herbert Spencer 2 quotes
βSpencer argued in a very articulate way for the communality of these processes of self-organization, and used his ideas to make a theory of sociology. However, he was not able to put these ideas into mathematical form or argue them from first principles. And no one else has, either β doing so is perhaps the central problem in the study of complex systems.β
Anna Kuliscioff on Herbert Spencer
βIn the words of Herbert Spencer, I would say that βin proportion as the principle of voluntary cooperation more and more characterizes the social type, the implied assertion of equality in... rights become the fundamental requirement of... law."β
Rebecca West on Herbert Spencer
βHerbert Spencer, who was ever undone by his love of classification.β
George Eliot a Biography. Gordon S. Height. Clarendon Press on Herbert Spencer
βSpencer had a photo of Marian (George Eliot) in his bedroom until the day he died. The sisters who kept house for him in the 1890s used to tease him about it. "What a long nose she had! She must have been very difficult to kiss, Mr Spencer!" "Yes indeed! he brightly acquiesced, to our intense delight at the apparent admission. He laughingly protested he was speaking theoretically; but would Herbert Spencer, the philosopher, have generalised from an a priori reasoning?"β
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Herbert Spencer
βThere 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 β that principle is contempt prior to investigation.β
About Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 β 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. He developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He is known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest".