Quotes By Herbert Spencer

Government is essentially immoral.

The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.

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

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.

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

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

Every cause produces more than one effect.

Education has for its object the formation of character.

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

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

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

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

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

We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.

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

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

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

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

Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

A jury is a group of twelve people of average ignorance.

The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.

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.