Quote

The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also only of a less intense kind.

Herbert Spencer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Herbert Spencer
Born: 1824
Born: April 27
Anthropologist
Botanist
Economist
Journalist
Philosopher
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Derby
Derbyshire
Spencert
Gerbert Spencer
Call
Less
Form
Objectionable
Also
Freest
Government
Tyranny
Many
Intense
Kind
Rule
Least

More quotes by Herbert Spencer

Image
Science is organized knowledge.
Herbert Spencer
Image
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
Image
Never educate a child to be a gentleman or lady alone, but to be a man, a woman.
Herbert Spencer
Image
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.
Herbert Spencer
Image
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.
Herbert Spencer
Image
Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.
Herbert Spencer
Image
Our lives are universally shortened by our ignorance.
Herbert Spencer
Image
Religion has been compelled by science to give up one after another of its dogmas. . . .
Herbert Spencer
Image
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
Image
Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such a way that pain shall not be inflicted.
Herbert Spencer
Image
This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
Herbert Spencer
Image
Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to human welfare.
Herbert Spencer
Image
A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.
Herbert Spencer
Image
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.
Herbert Spencer
Image
Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
Herbert Spencer
Image
Conservatism defends those coercive arrangements which a still-lingering savageness makes requisite. Radicalism endeavours to realize a state more in harmony with the character of the ideal man.
Herbert Spencer
Image
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
Image
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.
Herbert Spencer
Image
It is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true consequences of their conduct.
Herbert Spencer
Image
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.
Herbert Spencer