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Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Herbert Spencer Quotes

“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.”

ArtStatesUseFeelingsFormFictionExpressionDemandIdealsVarietyEvolveEssaysPresenting
Book:Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative
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“As there must be moderation in other things, so there must be moderation in self-criticism. Perpetual contemplation of our own actions produces a morbid consciousness, quite unlike that normal consciousness accompanying right actions spontaneously done; and from a state of unstable equilibrium long maintained by effort, there is apt to be a fall towards stable equilibrium, in which the primitive nature reasserts itself. Retrogression rather than progression may hence result.”

MayLongSelfStatesDoneActionFallResultsEffortConsciousnessProduceNormalCriticismContemplationStablePerpetualPrimitiveModerationProgressionEquilibriumUnstableMorbidRight ActionSelf Criticism
Author:Herbert Spencer
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“Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man.”

MenStillsStatesCharacterRealizingIdealsHarmonyArrangementsConservatismEndeavourLingeringRadicalismIdeal Man
Book:Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed
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“It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.”

HumansMayStatesGovernmentLastsCertainNaturalMistakeForeverStageParticularDevelopmentCivilizationEssentialsMarkInstitutionsAssumingPhasesHuman DevelopmentBushmen
Book:Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed
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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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