Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.
People. . . become so preoccupied with the means by which an end is achieved, as eventually to mistake it for the end. Just as money, which is a means of satisfying wants, comes to be regarded by a miser as the sole thing to be worked for, leaving the wants unsatisfied; so the conduct men have found preferable because most conducive to happiness, has come to be thought of as intrinsically preferable: not only to be made a proximate end (which it should be), but to be made an ultimate end, to the exclusion of the true ultimate end.
What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man.
The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control.
We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong.
Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get uppermost.
The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also; only of a less intense kind.
Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and the emotions produced by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm.
During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art.
With a higher moral nature will come a restriction on the multiplication of the inferior.
The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination.
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.
Religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a Power which transcends our knowledge.
It becomes possible to admit that plainness may coexist with nobility of nature, and fine features with baseness; and yet to hold that mental and physical perfection are fundamentally connected, and will, when the present causes of incongruity have worked themselves out, be ever found united.
Education has for its object to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature-this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.
The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.
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.
Sundry manifestations of nature in men and women, are greatly perverted by existing social conventions upheld by both. There are feelings which, under our predatory régime, with its adapted standard of propriety, it is not considered manly to show; but which, contrariwise, are considered admirable in women. Hence repressed manifestations in the one case, and exaggerated manifestations in the other; leading to mistaken estimates.
All socialism involves slavery. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy anothers desires.
Much dearer be the things which come through hard distress.
Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions.