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Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer Quotes

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Famous Herbert Spencer Quotes

“Puterea crescândă a unei organizații administrative în creștere e însoțită de puterea descrescândă a restului societății de a rezista la încălcarea și controlul ei continuu. Înmulțirea carierelor deschise de o birocrație în dezvoltare, ispitește pe membrii claselor ocârmuite de ea, să-i favorizeze întinderea, întrucât ea adaugă la prilejurile de a dobândi locuri sigure și respectabile pentru rudeniile lor.”

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Book:The Man Versus the State: With Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom
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“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.”

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Book:Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed
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“Surely in much talk there cannot choose but be much vanity. Loquacity is the fistula of the mind,--ever-running and almost incurable, let every man, therefore, be a Phocion or Pythagorean, to speak briefly to the point or not at all; let him labor like them of Crete, to show more wit in his discourse than words, and not to pour out of his mouth a flood of the one, when he can hardly wring out of his brains a drop of the other.”

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Author:Herbert Spencer
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“All socialism involves slavery.... That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of many gradations. Oppressive taxation is a form of slavery of the individual to the community as a whole. The essential question is -- How much is he compelled to labor for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit?”

WholeFormDesireIndividualCommunityResponsibilityEssentialsBenefitsLaborRelationSlaverySlaveSocialismOppressionCompelledTaxationCoercionEssential Questions
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“Courage is worthy of respect when displayed in the maintenance of legitimate claims and in the repelling of aggressions, bodily or other. Courage is worthy of yet higher respect when danger is faced in defence of claims common to self and others, as in resistance to invasion. Courage is worthy of the highest respect when risk to life or limb is dared in defence of others.”

SelfCommonCourageRiskDangerHigherHighestClaimsWorthyResistanceAggressionLimbsInvasionDefenceMaintenanceRepelling
Book:The Study of Sociology
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“How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say, "Leave the room," is less expressive than to point to the door. Place a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, "Do not speak." A beck of the hand is better than, "Come here." No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.”

IdeasHandsEyeRememberSpeakLanguageForceLosesSimpleRoomsDoorsInstrumentsSurpriseFingersLipsShouldersOpeningPerceivePhrasesTranslationsEyebrowsWhisperingExpressiveHindranceSimple Ideas
Book:Essays: Moral, Political and Aesthetic
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“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?”

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Book:An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer
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“If men were wise they would see that the affection that God has implanted in us is amply sufficient, when not weakened by artificial aid, to ensure permanence of union; and if they would have more faith in this all would go well. To tie together by human law what God has tied together by passion, is about as wise as it would be to chain the moon to the earth lest the natural attraction existing between them should not be sufficient to prevent them flying asunder.”

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Book:An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer
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“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.”

MenNeedsShouldSelfEvilMoralPrinciplesSacrificeChangedReturnBenefitsStandardsRegardStupidityRevengeCodeUrgesAdmirationHonourCowardiceCreedsBlindnessAdmirableSelf SacrificeBarbariansCardinalsRevisionInconsistency
Book:Works: The study of sociology
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“Music may appeal to crude and coarse feelings or to refined and noble ones; and in so far as it does the latter it awakens the higher nature and works an effect, though but a transitory effect, of a beneficial kind. But the primary purpose of music is neither instruction nor culture but pleasure; and this is an all-sufficient purpose.”

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Book:Works
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“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.”

MenShowsFeelingsSocialCasesStandardsMen And WomenManifestationConventionsMistakenAdmirableAdaptedExaggeratedManlyProprietyRepressedPredatory
Book:The Study of Sociology
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“All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. Does a shrub dwindle in poor soil, or become sickly when deprived of light, or die outright if removed to a cold climate? it is because the harmony between its organization and its circumstances has been destroyed.”

IfsDoeHas BeensLightDiesEvilPoorResultsConditionsColdCircumstancesOrganizationConstitutionHarmonyClimateDestroyedSoilAdaptationDeprivedShrubsCold Climate
Book:Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed
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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.”

Has BeensRealityFoundResultsBehindsFieldsTheoryNegativeCriticismAppearanceConceptionExhaustedSpeculationScepticismPositive Results
Book:Synthetic Philosophy ...: First principles. 1920. [v.2-3] The principles of biology. v.1, rev. & enl. ed., 1921
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“Under the natural course of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use.”

TryingKindUseTurnsCoursesForceNaturalCasesCitizensEasierSucceedFunctionAverageCeaseProportionEfficiencyCompetentIncompetent
Book:Essays--scientific, political and speculative
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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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Book:Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative
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“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.”

PeopleMenWantShouldMeanMadeEndsFoundMistakeUltimateLeavingSatisfyingSoleWant UExclusionMisersUnsatisfied
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“The ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. One in whom the powers of expression fully responded to the state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety in the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands.”

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Book:Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative
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