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Herbert Spencer Quotes - Page 8

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Organs, faculties, powers, capacities, or whatever else we call them; grow by use and diminish from disuse, it is inferred that they will continue to do so. And if this inference is unquestionable, then is the one above

Organs, faculties, powers, capacities, or whatever else we call them; grow by use and diminish from disuse, it is inferred that they will continue to do so. And if this inference is unquestionable, then is the one above deduced from it-that humanity must in the end become completely adapted to its conditions-unquestionable also. Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity.

Herbert Spencer
Science, Humanity, Growth
Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.79

To have a specific style is to be poor in speech.

Herbert Spencer
Writing, Style, Speech
Herbert Spencer (1873). “Philosophy of Style: An Essay”, p.47

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.

Herbert Spencer
Light, Organization, Evil
Herbert Spencer (1873). “Social Statics; Or, The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, & the First of Them Developed”, p.73

We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

Herbert Spencer
Believe, Order, Together
Herbert Spencer (1858). “Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative”, p.234

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
Law, Utterance, Speech
Herbert Spencer (1872). “Philosophy of Style: An Essay”, p.38

To play billiards well is the sign of a misspent youth.

Herbert Spencer
Gambling, Play, Billiards

We have repeatedly observed that while any whole is evolving, there is always going on an evolution of the parts into which it divides itself; but we have not observed that this equally holds of the totality of things, which is made up of parts within parts from the greatest down to the smallest.

Herbert Spencer
Evolution, Made, Evolve
Herbert Spencer (1864). “First Principles”, p.559

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.

Herbert Spencer
Beauty, Perfection, May

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.‎

Herbert Spencer
Animal, Dna, Special
Herbert Spencer (1864). “The Principles of Biology”, p.181

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
Evil, Soul, Forget
Herbert Spencer (1864). “First Principles”, p.3

When you take comprehensive, then we're dealing with certain issues like full citizenship ... And whatever else we disagree on, I think we would agree on that that's a more toxic and contentious issue, granting full amnesty.

Herbert Spencer
Thinking, Issues, Immigration

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
Art, Expression, Feelings
Herbert Spencer (1868). “Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative”, p.46

Do not try to produce an ideal child, it would find no fitness in this world.

Herbert Spencer
Children, Trying, World

Even the absurdest report may in nearly every instance be traced to an actual occurrence; and had there been no such actual occurrence, this preposterous misrepresentation of it would never have existed. Though the distorted or magnified image transmitted to us through the refracting medium of rumour, is utterly unlike the reality; yet in the absence of the reality there would have been no distorted or magnified image.

Herbert Spencer
Reality, Rumor, May
Herbert Spencer (1864). “First Principles”, p.3

Though, probably, no competent geologist would contend that the European classification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole; yet most, if not all geologists, write as though it were so.

Herbert Spencer
Writing, Science, Europe
"Illustrations of Universal Progress: A Series of Discussions".

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