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If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making?

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
People
Freedom
Despots
Free
Elect
Less
Despotism
Making
Slaves
Use
Surrender
Government
Slave
Plebiscite
Way
Remain
Despot
Men
Liberty
Thereafter

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People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.
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Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.
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Religion is the recognition that all things are manifestations of a Power which transcends our knowledge.
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Only when Genius is married to Science can the highest results be produced.
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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.
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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.
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Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
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The idea of disembodied spirits is wholly unsupported by evidence, and I cannot accept it.
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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.
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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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Lusts are like agues the fit is not always on, and yet the man is not rid of his disease and some men's lusts, like some agues, have not such quick returns as others.
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The essential trait in the moral consciousness, is the control of some feeling or feelings by some other feeling or feelings.
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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.
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Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory it supported by no facts at all.
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The child takes most of his nature of the mother, besides speech, manners, and inclination.
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In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man.
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All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. Does a shrub dwindle in poor soil, or become sickly when deprived of light, or die outright if removed to a cold climate? it is because the harmony between its organization and its circumstances has been destroyed.
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The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.
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So long as selfishness makes government needful at all, it must make every government corrupt, save one in which all men are represented.
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