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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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Herbert Spencer
Born: 1824
Born: April 27
Anthropologist
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Economist
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Derby
Derbyshire
Spencert
Gerbert Spencer
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More quotes by Herbert Spencer

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The ideal form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer would evolve spontaneously. One in whom the powers of expression fully responded to the state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety in the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands.
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Mental power cannot be got from ill-fed brains.
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The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way, with the same sternness that they exterminate beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants.
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Our lives are universally shortened by our ignorance.
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It cannot but happen?that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces? This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
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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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A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited.
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Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.
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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 society exists for the benefit of its members not its members for the benefit of the society.
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Policeman are soldiers who act alone soldiers are policeman who act in unison.
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Marriage: A word which should be pronounced mirage.
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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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There is no origin for the idea of an afterlife, save the conclusion which the savage draws from the notion suggested by dreams.
Herbert Spencer
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It is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct.
Herbert Spencer
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Government is essentially immoral.
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.
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Let men learn that a legislature is not 'our God upon earth,' though, by the authority they ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best borrowed.
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Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.
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Only when Genius is married to Science can the highest results be produced.
Herbert Spencer