Quotes from Herbert Spencer

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

Who indeed, after pulling off the coloured glasses of prejudice and thrusting out of sight his pet projects, can help seeing the folly of these endeavours to protect men against themselves? A sad population of imbeciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last.

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions.

The greatest of all infidelities is the fear that the truth will be bad.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

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

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

Whatever fosters militarism makes for barbarism; whatever fosters peace makes for civilization.

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.

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

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.

No man is equal to his book. All the best products of his mental activity go into his book, where they come separated from the mass of inferior products with which they are mingled in his daily talk.

There is a principal which is proof against all information, which is proof against all arguments, which cannot fail to keep man in everlasting ignorance; that principal is - Contempt prior to investigation !

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.

When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has, the greater is his confusion.

Love is life's end, but never ending. Love is life's wealth, never spent, but ever spending. Love's life's reward, rewarded in rewarding.

They who employ force by proxy are as much responsible for that force as though they employed it themselves.

Science is organized knowledge.

And yet, strange to say, now that the truth [of natural selection] is recognized by most cultivated people...now more than ever, in the history of the world, are they doing all they can to further the survival of the unfittest.

The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way, with the same sternness that they exterminate beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants.

This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest. { The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was not originated by Charles Darwin , though he discussed Spencer's 'excellent expression' in a letter to Alfred Russel Wallace (Jul 1866) .}

No one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.