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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
Way
Remain
Despot
Men
Liberty
Thereafter
People
Freedom
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Making
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Surrender
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Slave
Plebiscite

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No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.
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The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control.
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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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It becomes possible to admit that plainness may coexist with nobility of nature, and fine features with baseness and yet to hold that mental and physical perfection are fundamentally connected, and will, when the present causes of incongruity have worked themselves out, be ever found united.
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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.
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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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Feudalism, serfdom, slavery — all tyrannical institutions, are merely the most vigorous kinds of rule, springing out of, and necessary to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is in all cases the same — less government.
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When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion.
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Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.
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It is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct.
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Science is organized knowledge.
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Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such a way that pain shall not be inflicted.
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Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity…It is a part of nature.
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In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.
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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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If on one day we find the fast-spreading recognition of popular rights accompanied by a silent, growing perception of the rights of women, we also find it accompanied by a tendency towards a system of non-coercive education--that is, towards a practical illustration of the rights of children.
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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.
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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.
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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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