Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencerwas an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth27 April 1820
Herbert Spencer quotes about
survival external-forces function
It cannot but happen?that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces? This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
stones golden philosopher
No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts.
causes ethics produce
Every cause produces more than one effect.
liberty libertarian citizens
The liberty the citizen enjoys is to be measured not by governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the paucity of restraints it imposes upon him.
strong agency effort
Strong as it looks at the outset, State-agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first stages, private efforts daily achieve results that astound the world.
success animal people
People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.
government risk reign
Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.
education teaching character
Education has for its object the formation of character.
civilization lows no-money
In societies of low civilization, there is no money.
revenge sacrifice men
Is it stupidity or is it moral cowardice which leads men to continue professing a creed that makes self-sacrifice a cardinal principle, while they urge the sacrificing of others, even to the death, when they trespass against us? Is it blindness, or is it an insance inconsistency, which makes them regard as most admirable the bearing of evil for the benefit of others, while they lavish admiration on those who, out of revenge, inflict great evils in return for small ones suffered? Surely our barbarian code of right needs revision, and our barbarian standard of honour should be somewhat changed.
moral restriction higher
With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.
feelings essentials moral
The essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.
mistake government civilization
It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.
strong poverty misery
The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many "in shallows and in miseries," are the decrees of a large, far-seeing benevolence.