Famous Education Quotations from Philosopher Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer Quotations on Education

Herbert Spencer - Hulton Archive - Stringer Getty Images-2628697
English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820 - 1903). Original Publication: People Disc - HR0079 (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Hulton Archive - Stringer Getty Images-2628697

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, prolific writer, and advocate of education, science over religion, and evolution. He wrote four essays on education and is known for espousing that science is the knowledge of greatest worth.

He is also known for the following famous quotations:



“For discipline, as well as for guidance, science is of chiefest value. In all its effects, learning the meaning of things is better than learning the meaning of words.”

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

“Education has for its object the formation of character.”

“Science is organized knowledge.”

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

“In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.”

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

“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.”

“Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity…It is a part of nature.”

“The survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life."



“How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.”


“Every cause produces more than one effect.”

“Government is essentially immoral.”





“Much dearer be the things which come through hard distress.”

“We too often forget that not only is there a soul of goodness in things evil, but very generally a soul of truth in things erroneous.”

“Our lives are universally shortened by our ignorance.”
