Herbert Spencer Quotes

Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man's character.

Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one.

The ultimate goal of discipline is to teach self discipline.

If we cannot count on ourselves to do the right thing how can we count on anyone or anything else? Self-government won't work without self-discipline.

Character is a perfectly educated will.

All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty, both good and bad, strengthens by exercise: therefore, if you choose to use the bad, or those which tend to evil till they become your masters, and neglect the good till they dwindle away, you have only yourself to blame.

When you rely on incentives, you undermine virtues. Then when you discover that you actually need people who want to do the right thing, those people don't exist because you've crushed anyone's desire to do the right thing with all these incentives.

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

Golf is a game of ego, but it is also a game of integrity: the most important thing is you do what is right when no one is looking.

Each person is his own judge.

Your character must be above suspicion and you must be truthful and self-controlled.

We should make virtue our master, not our servant.

For self is the lord of self, self is the refuge of self; therefore curb thyself as the merchant curbs a good horse.

My whole theory for the improvement of society is based on a belief in the discipline and the education of the individual to self-control and right doing, for the sake of right doing. I have never seen fundamental improvements imposed from the top by ordinances and laws.

Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom.

Self-respect leads to self-discipline.

The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one's whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexities of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved.

You cannot make men good by law.

The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love.

In the matter of learning, the difference between the earnest and the careless student stands out clearly. The same holds true in the mastering of passion and the weaknesses to which our nature is subject, as in the acquiring of virtue.