Herbert Spencer

Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity … It is a part of nature.

Education has for its object the formation of character.

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.

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’.

Every active force produces more than one change—every cause produces more than one effect.

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

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

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

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.

During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art.

Science is organized knowledge.

Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such a way that pain shall not be inflicted.

A clever theft was praiseworthy amongst the Spartans; and it is equally so amongst Christians, provided it be on a sufficiently large scale.

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced “mirage.”

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