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Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Herbert Spencer Quotes

“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.”

IfsMenShouldHumansWellsWould BeEarthTogetherLawPassionNaturalMarriageWiseMoonUnionsAffectionAttractionAidsFlyingChainsTiesSufficientArtificialTiedPermanence
Book:An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer
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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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“If on one day we find the fast-spreading recognition of popular rights accompanied by a silent, growing perception of the rights of women, we also find it accompanied by a tendency towards a system of non-coercive education--that is, towards a practical illustration of the rights of children.”

IfsChildrenGrowingRightsOne DayPerceptionSilentPracticalsTendenciesRecognitionIllustration
Book:Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed
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“Organs, faculties, powers, capacities, or whatever else we call them; grow by use and diminish from disuse, it is inferred that they will continue to do so. And if this inference is unquestionable, then is the one above deduced from it-that humanity must in the end become completely adapted to its conditions-unquestionable also. Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity.”

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Book:Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed
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“If there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilization in little.”

IfsShouldMindHumansKindChildrenLittlesReasonScienceOrderIndividualRaceStepsKnowledgeCivilizationFundamentalsVariousAriseReason WhyIndifferenceHuman RaceAcquireIndifferentRepetitionFacilitateAptitudeLittle Knowledge
Book:Essays on education and kindred subjects Repr
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“The law is the survival of the fittest.... The law is not the survival of the 'better' or the 'stronger,' if we give to those words any thing like their ordinary meanings. It is the survival of those which are constitutionally fittest to thrive under the conditions in which they are placed; and very often that which, humanly speaking, is inferiority, causes the survival.”

IfsGivingLawCausesConditionsSurvivalOrdinaryStrongerThriveInferioritySurvival Of The Fittest
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“Any one who studies the state of things which preceded the French Revolution will see that that tremendous catastrophe came about from so excessive a regulation of men's actions in all their details, and such an enormous drafting away of the products of their actions to maintain the regulating organization, that life was fast becoming impracticable. And if we ask what then made, and now makes, this error possible, we find it to be the political superstition that governmental power is subject to no restraints.”

IfsMenLifeMadeStatesActionPoliticalAsksStudySubjectsProductsRevolutionBecomingOrganizationErrorsDetailsEnormousRegulationSuperstitionsRestraintCatastropheFrench RevolutionMental PowerDrafting
Author:Herbert Spencer
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