Herbert Spencer Quotes - Page 5

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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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Eye, Simple, Doors

  Herbert Spencer (1871). “Essays: Moral, Political and Aesthetic”, p.11

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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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Mistake, Mean, Men

  "The Principles of Ethics" by Herbert Spencer, New York, (§ 14, pp. 38-39), 1915.

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• Pervading all nature we may see at work a stern discipline , which is a little cruel that it may be very kind.

  Herbert Spencer

  Discipline, May, Littles

  "Social Statics, Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed".

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• Let men learn that a legislature is not 'our God upon earth,' though, by the authority they ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best borrowed.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Thinking, Purpose

  Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.230

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• Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their misdeeds.

  Herbert Spencer

  Echoes, Soul, Hardship

  Herbert Spencer (2016). “The Man versus the State: Great Essays”, p.20, VM eBooks

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• Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and the emotions produced by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm.

  Herbert Spencer

  Beauty, Sculpture, Half

  Herbert Spencer (1866). “Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical”, p.72

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• 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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Two, Doe, Lines

  Herbert Spencer (1868). “Social Statics, Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed”, p.510

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• If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.

  Herbert Spencer

  Science, Men, Cells

  Herbert Spencer (1864). “The Principles of Biology”, p.350

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• No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts.

  Herbert Spencer

  Stones, Golden, Philosopher

  Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.295

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• Policeman are soldiers who act alone; soldiers are policeman who act in unison.

  Herbert Spencer

  Soldier, Unison, Policemen

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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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Average, Trying, Citizens

  Herbert Spencer (1858). “Essays--scientific, political and speculative”, p.324

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• Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

  Herbert Spencer

  Government, Risk, Reign

  Herbert Spencer (2016). “Illustrations of Universal Progress: Great Philosopher”, p.62, 北戴河出版

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• Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced.

  Herbert Spencer

  Simple, May, Language

  Herbert Spencer (1868). “Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative”, p.11

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• The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way, with the same sternness that they exterminate beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants.

  Herbert Spencer

  Work Out, Perfect, Suffering

  Herbert Spencer (1851). “Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed”, p.416

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• The question of questions for the politicians should ever be-What type of social structure am I tending to produce? But this is a question he never entertains.

  Herbert Spencer

  Politics, Politician, Social

  Herbert Spencer (1894). “The Man Versus the State: Containing "The New Toryism," "The Coming Slavery," "The Sins of Legislators" and "The Great Political Superstition”

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• It is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct.

  Herbert Spencer

  Children, Inspiration, Parenting

  Herbert Spencer (1866). “Education: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical”, p.178

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• The idea of disembodied spirits is wholly unsupported by evidence, and I cannot accept it.

  Herbert Spencer

  Ideas, Atheism, Spirit

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• It cannot but happen?that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces? This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.

  Herbert Spencer

  Survival, External Forces, Function

  'Principles of Biology' (1865) pt. 3, ch. 12, 164.

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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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Running, Men, Vanity

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• That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in others, though not so clearly in ourselves.

  Herbert Spencer

  Hate, Feelings, Impossible

  Herbert Spencer (1874). “The Study of Sociology”, p.153, London, D. Appleton

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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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Character, Men, Radicalism

  Herbert Spencer (1851). “Social Statics: Or, the Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed”, p.469

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• Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

  Herbert Spencer

  Science, Serious, Pursuit

  Herbert Spencer (1890). “Education, Intellectual, Moral, and Physical”, p.72, Рипол Классик

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• And yet, strange to say, now that this truth is recognized by most cultivated people — now that the beneficent working of the survival of the fittest has been so impressed on them that, much more than people in past times, they might be expected to hesitate before neutralizing its action — now more than ever before in the history of the world, are they doing all they can to further survival of the unfittest!

  Herbert Spencer

  People, Survival, World

  "The Man versus the State: Great Essays".

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• A nation's institutions and beliefs are determined by it's character.

  Herbert Spencer

  Military, Character, Determined

  Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.182

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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.

  Herbert Spencer

  Marriage, Wise, Passion

  Herbert Spencer (1904). “An Autobiography: By Herbert Spencer”

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