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.
Herbert SpencerRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Contempt prior to investigation prevents understanding and keeps a person ignorant.
Herbert Spencer's quote highlights the danger of forming opinions or dismissing ideas before fully understanding them. By showing contempt for new information without investigation, one forfeits the opportunity to gain knowledge and remain open-minded, ultimately leading to ignorance and a lack of personal growth.
Themes
ContemptIgnoranceInvestigationKnowledgeOpen-Mindedness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about new scientific discoveries, this quote can remind participants to remain open to new ideas.
More from Herbert Spencer
All quotes βThat 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.
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This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.
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I emphasize the reply that the liberty which a citizen enjoys is to be measured, not by the nature of the governmental machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by the relative paucity of the restraints it imposes on him.
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