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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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Herbert Spencer
Born: 1824
Born: April 27
Anthropologist
Botanist
Economist
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Derby
Derbyshire
Spencert
Gerbert Spencer
Numbers
Wholly
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Current
Currents
According
False
Gains
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All socialism involves slavery. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy anothers desires.
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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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In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.
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Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.
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The universal basis of co-operation is the proportioning of benefits received to services rendered.
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All socialism involves slavery.
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We too often forget that not only is there 'a soul of goodness in things evil,' but very generally also, a soul of truth in things erroneous.
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The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.
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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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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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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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Marriage: A word which should be pronounced mirage.
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Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get uppermost.
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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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No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation-free let no man boast that he was never tempted, let him not be high-minded, but fear, for he may be surprised in that very instant wherein he boasteth that he was never tempted at all.
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Much dearer be the things which come through hard distress.
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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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Time: That which man is always trying to kill, but which ends in killing him.
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.
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A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.
Herbert Spencer