Herbert Spencer quotes - page 5

Man needed one moral constitution to fit him for his original state; he needs another to fit him for his present state; and he has been, is, and will long continue to be, in process of adaptation. (Herbert Spencer)
He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw. View quote
Herbert Spencer
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. View quote
Herbert Spencer
It cannot but happen that those individuals whose functions are most out of equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces, will be those to die; and that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces. But this survival of the fittest, implies multiplication of the fittest. View quote
Herbert Spencer
It is provable both that the historical sequence was, in its main outlines, a necessary one; and that the causes which determined it apply to the child. View quote
Herbert Spencer
All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. View quote
Herbert Spencer
To the clergy nothing is more obvious than that a state-church is just, and essential to the maintenance of religion. The sinecurist thinks himself rightly indignant at any disregard of his vested interests. And so on throughout society. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. View quote
Herbert Spencer
Throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying influence. View quote
Herbert Spencer
We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other. View quote
Herbert Spencer
There can be little question that good composition is far less dependent upon acquaintance with its laws, than upon practice and natural aptitude. (Herbert Spencer)
An insatiate lust of conquest transmutes manslaying into a virtue; and, amongst more races than one, implacable revenge has made assassination a duty. A clever theft was praiseworthy amongst the Spartans; and it is equally so amongst Christians, provided it be on a sufficiently large scale. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The blindness of those who think it absurd to suppose that complex organic forms may have arisen by successive modifications out of simple ones becomes astonishing when we remember that complex organic forms are daily being thus produced. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The ruling classes argue themselves into the belief that property should be represented rather than person - that the landed interest should preponderate. The pauper is thoroughly persuaded that he has a right to relief. View quote
Herbert Spencer
Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts of the phenomena of life at large. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The supporters of the Development Hypothesis... can show that any existing species-animal or vegetable-when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes fitting it for the new conditions. They can show that in successive generations these changes continue; until, ultimately, the new conditions become the natural ones. View quote
Herbert Spencer
As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state - to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The supporters of the Development Hypothesis... can show that any existing species-animal or vegetable-when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes fitting it for the new conditions. View quote
Herbert Spencer
No human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority mediately or immediately from this original. View quote
Herbert Spencer
The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship. (Herbert Spencer)
Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight lines. View quote
Herbert Spencer
This 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 favoured races in the struggle for life.' View quote
Herbert Spencer
Whatever foster militarism makes for barbarism whatever fosters peace makes for civilization. View quote
Herbert Spencer
Progress is not an accident, not a thing within human control, but a beneficent necessity ... due to the working of a universal law. So surely must the things we call evil and immorality disappear so surely must man become perfect. View quote
Herbert Spencer