Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencerwas an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth27 April 1820
life change moments
A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.
life men organization
Anyone who studies the state of things which preceded the French Revolution will see that the 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.
balance life-is life-balance
Life is not for learning nor is life for working, but learning and working are for life.
good-life healthy firsts
Of all the knowledge, that most worth having is knowledge about health! The first requisite of a good life is to be a healthy person.
life reality relation
Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
alike almost beliefs centuries everywhere futility held insisted needs past perceive
Or it needs only to look back over past centuries and the iniquities alike of populace, nobles, kings, and popes to perceive an almost incomprehensible futility of the beliefs everywhere held and perpetually insisted upon
gentlemen lady nose
of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.
darwin express mechanical races sought struggle survival
The survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.
free perfectly till
No one can be perfectly free till all are free.
benefit english-philosopher exists members society
Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.
bear constant english-philosopher lower men
The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.
against bar cannot contempt fail ignorance man principle prior proof
There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation
contempt ignorance man principle prior
There is one principle that can keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That is contempt prior to investigation.
party support doe
The chief arguments that are urged against an established religion, may be used with equal force against an established charity. The dissenter submits, that no party has a right to compel him to contribute to the support of doctrines, which do not meet his approbation. The rate-payer may as reasonably argue, that no one is justified in forcing him to subscribe towards the maintenance of persons, whom he does not consider deserving of relief.