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A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.

Herbert Spencer

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Herbert Spencer
Born: 1824
Born: April 27
Anthropologist
Botanist
Economist
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Derby
Derbyshire
Spencert
Gerbert Spencer
Place
Multiplicity
Change
Distinguished
Thing
Changes
Life
Taking
Dead
Moment
Living
Moments

More quotes by Herbert Spencer

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I emphasize the reply that the liberty which a citizen enjoys is to be measured, not by the nature of the governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the relative paucity of the restraints it imposes on him.
Herbert Spencer
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Education has for its object to develop the child into a man of well proportioned and harmonious nature-this is alike the aim of parent and teacher.
Herbert Spencer
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Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.
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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.
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The idea of disembodied spirits is wholly unsupported by evidence, and I cannot accept it.
Herbert Spencer
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How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.
Herbert Spencer
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Practical atheism, seeing no guidance for human affairs but its own limited foresight, endeavors itself to play the god, and decide what will be good for mankind and what bad.
Herbert Spencer
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Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.
Herbert Spencer
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It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institution marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct.
Herbert Spencer
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The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also only of a less intense kind.
Herbert Spencer
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We must infer that a plant or animal of any species, is made up of special units, in all of which there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to aggregate into the form of that species: just as in the atoms of a salt, there dwells the intrinsic aptitude to crystallize in a particular way.
Herbert Spencer
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Policeman are soldiers who act alone soldiers are policeman who act in unison.
Herbert Spencer
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Strong as it looks at the outset, State-agency perpetually disappoints every one. Puny as are its first stages, private efforts daily achieve results that astound the world.
Herbert Spencer
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The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.
Herbert Spencer
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Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts of the phenomena of life at large. We have to deal with man as a product of evolution, with society as a product of evolution, and with moral phenomena as products of evolution.
Herbert Spencer
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The existence of a first cause of the universe is a necessity of thought ... Amid the mysteries which become more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty that we are over in the presence of an Infinite, Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.
Herbert Spencer
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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
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The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.
Herbert Spencer
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The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.
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The primary use of knowledge is for such guidance of conduct under all circumstances as shall make living complete. All other uses of knowledge are secondary.
Herbert Spencer