There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
Herbert SpencerRead
How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Misused words can lead to incorrect or harmful assumptions.
Herbert Spencer highlights the significant impact that language has on our thoughts and perceptions. When words are misused or misunderstood, they can distort reality, leading to confusion and misguided beliefs, emphasizing the importance of clear and precise communication in fostering understanding.
Themes
LanguageCommunicationThoughtsMisunderstandingClarity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of clear communication, you might use this quote to emphasize how language can shape perception.
More from Herbert Spencer
All quotes →No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.
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That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in others, though not so clearly in ourselves.
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Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression, and by aggression.
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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 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 SpencerRead
This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
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