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
marriage funny-marriage mirages
Marriage: A word which should be pronounced "mirage".
evil soul forget
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.
balance life-is life-balance
Life is not for learning nor is life for working, but learning and working are for life.
struggle race survival
This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection", or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.
reading proxy seeing
Reading is seeing by proxy.
marriage husband men
The present relationship existing between husband and wife, where one claims a command over the actions of the other, is nothing more than a remnant of the old leaven of slavery. It is necessarily destructive of refined love; for how can a man continue to regard as his type of the ideal a being whom he has, be denying an equality of privilege with himself, degraded to something below himself?
kings mean divine-right
Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get uppermost.
motivational men self
The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control.
numbers gains opinion
The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.
beauty sculpture half
Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and the emotions produced by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm.
tyrants perspective slave
The tyrant is nothing but a slave turned inside out.
equality men progress
It is a commonly observed fact that the enslavement of women is invariably associated with a low type of social life, and that, conversely, her elevation towards an equality with man uniformly accompanies progress.
courage truth book
The authoritarian sets up some book, or man, or tradition to establish the truth. The freethinker sets up reason and private judgment to discover the truth... It takes the highest courage to utter unpopular truths.
against bar cannot contempt fail ignorance man principle prior proof
There 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 - that principle is contempt prior to investigation