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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

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Herbert Spencer
Born: 1824
Born: April 27
Anthropologist
Botanist
Economist
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Derby
Derbyshire
Spencert
Gerbert Spencer
Circumstances
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Secondary
Knowledge
Conduct
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Primaries
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More quotes by Herbert Spencer

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Mother, when your children are irritable, do not make them more so by scolding and fault-finding, but correct their irritability by good nature and mirthfulness. Irritability comes from errors in food, bad air, too little sleep, a necessity for change of scene and surroundings from confinement in close rooms, and lack of sunshine.
Herbert Spencer
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Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
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No philosopher's stone of a constitution can produce golden conduct from leaden instincts.
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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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The saying that beauty is but skin deep, is but a skin-deep saying.
Herbert Spencer
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Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions.
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.
Herbert Spencer
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Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.
Herbert Spencer
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Marriage: A word which should be pronounced mirage.
Herbert Spencer
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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.
Herbert Spencer
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Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.
Herbert Spencer
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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.
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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Never educate a child to be a gentleman or lady alone, but to be a man, a woman.
Herbert Spencer
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Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity…It is a part of nature.
Herbert Spencer
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Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life.
Herbert Spencer
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It must be admitted that the conception of virtue cannot be separated from the conception of happiness-producing conduct.
Herbert Spencer
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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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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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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