Top 15 Herbert Spencer Quotes

English philosopher and political theorist (1820–1903)

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Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, classical liberal political theorist, and sociological theorist of the Victorian era. He 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 is known for coining the phrase "survival of the fittest".

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Alternative Names: Spencert • Gerbert Spencer

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The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

Whatever fosters militarism makes for barbarism; whatever fosters peace makes for civilization.

Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.

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

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

No man is equal to his book. All the best products of his mental activity go into his book, where they come separated from the mass of inferior products with which they are mingled in his daily talk.

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.

There is a principal
which is proof against all information,
which is proof against all arguments,
which cannot fail to keep man in
everlasting ignorance;
that principal is -
Contempt prior to investigation !

We too often forget that not only is there 'a soul of goodness in things evil,' but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.

They who employ force by proxy are as much responsible for that force as though they employed it themselves.

Love is life's end, but never ending. Love is life's wealth, never spent, but ever spending. Love's life's reward, rewarded in rewarding.

And yet, strange to say, now that the truth [of natural selection] is recognized by most cultivated people...now more than ever, in the history of the world, are they doing all they can to further the survival of the unfittest.