Quotes & anectdotes from
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the foolish,
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Herbert Spencer Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Born: Apr 27, 1820
  • Died: Dec 8, 1903

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era.

Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies. He was "an enthusiastic exponent of evolution" and even "wrote about evolution before Darwin did." As a polymath, he contributed to a wide range of subjects, including ethics, religion, anthropology, economics, political theory, philosophy, literature, biology, sociology, and psychology. During his lifetime he achieved tremendous authority, mainly in English-speaking academia. "The only other English philosopher to have achieved anything like such widespread popularity was Bertrand Russell, and that was in the 20th century." Spencer was "the single most famous European intellectual in the closing decades of the nineteenth century" but his influence declined sharply after 1900; "Who now reads Spencer?" asked Talcott Parsons in 1937.

In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.

Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.

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

The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced 'mirage'.

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

Education has for its object the formation of character.

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one.

Government is essentially immoral.

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

Science is organized knowledge.

An argument fatal to the communist theory, is suggested by the fact, that a desire for property is one of the elements of our nature.