Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.
Herbert Spencer

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.
Herbert Spencer

Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect.
Herbert Spencer

Our lives are universally shortened by our ignorance.
Herbert Spencer

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.
Herbert Spencer

Science is organized knowledge.
Herbert Spencer

Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.
Herbert Spencer

The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.
Herbert Spencer

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.
Herbert Spencer

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.
Herbert Spencer

The more specific idea of Evolution now reached is - a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.
Herbert Spencer

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.
Herbert Spencer

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
Herbert Spencer

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
Herbert Spencer

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.
Herbert Spencer

Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.
Herbert Spencer

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.
Herbert Spencer

We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.
Herbert Spencer

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one.
Herbert Spencer

What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man.
Herbert Spencer