A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

— Herbert Spencer

A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.

— Herbert Spencer

All socialism involves slavery.

— Herbert Spencer

All Socialism involves slavery.

— Herbert Spencer

As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlaw. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state—to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man’s property against his will, is an infringement of his rights.

— Herbert Spencer

Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation.

— Herbert Spencer

Government is essentially immoral.

— Herbert Spencer

If a single cell, under appropriate conditions, becomes a man in the space of a few years, there can surely be no difficulty in understanding how, under appropriate conditions, a cell may, in the course of untold millions of years, give origin to the human race.

— Herbert Spencer

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

— Herbert Spencer

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

— Herbert Spencer