Herbert Spencer Quotes
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The cruelty of a Fijian god, who, represented as devouring the souls of the dead, may be supposed to inflict torture during the process, is small compared with the cruelty of a God who condemns men to tortures which are eternal.
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Marriage: A word which should be pronounced "mirage".
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The tyrant is nothing but a slave turned inside out.
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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.
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Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.
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The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.
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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.
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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.
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Every cause produces more than one effect.
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When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don't care if they are shot themselves.
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Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such a way that pain shall not be inflicted.
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Never educate a child to be a gentleman or lady alone, but to be a man, a woman.
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The question of questions for the politicians should ever be-What type of social structure am I tending to produce? But this is a question he never entertains.
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No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
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All socialism involves slavery. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy anothers desires.
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To have a specific style is to be poor in speech.
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The chief arguments that are urged against an established religion, may be used with equal force against an established charity. The dissenter submits, that no party has a right to compel him to contribute to the support of doctrines, which do not meet his approbation. The rate-payer may as reasonably argue, that no one is justified in forcing him to subscribe towards the maintenance of persons, whom he does not consider deserving of relief.
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The existence of a first cause of the universe is a necessity of thought ... Amid the mysteries which become more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty that we are over in the presence of an Infinite, Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.
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Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to human welfare.
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The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.
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Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
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Religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a Power which transcends our knowledge.
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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.
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In assuming any office besides its essential one, the State begins to lose the power of fulfilling its essential one.