QuoteProject
Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight lines.
Herbert Spencer
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote compares the concept of right actions to straight lines, suggesting that just as there is only one way to be straight, there is only one way to act rightly.

Herbert Spencer's quote emphasizes the idea that moral actions can be judged in a similar way to geometrical lines. Just as a straight line is defined as the shortest distance between two points and is unique in its nature, right actions are singular and definitive, indicating that there is a universally accepted standard for what is considered right, without ambiguity or multiple interpretations.

Themes

RightnessActionsStraightnessPhilosophyMorality

In practice

Example use cases

When discussing ethics in a classroom setting.

More from Herbert Spencer

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
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
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.
Herbert SpencerRead
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.
Herbert SpencerRead
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.
Herbert SpencerRead

Similar quotes

In this world of ours, a world of powerful centers and subjugated outposts, there is no wealth that must not be held in some suspicion.
Eduardo GaleanoRead
This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here.
Kevin KellyRead
Don't see yourself as a body of clay; See yourself as a mirror reflecting the divine beauty.
RumiRead
I think that wealthy white people would like to have a country that resembles the Fifties, when all the minorities were tucked away in ghettos and paid in very low wages but on the surface it was very bright and shiny and free and the rest of the world would look on it longingly.
Alice WalkerRead
Anyone who can be proved to be a seditious person is an outlaw before God and the emperor; and whoever is the first to put him to death does right and well. Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel.
Martin LutherRead
It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.
William Carlos WilliamsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.