Quote#Money & Wealth
People ... become so preoccupied with the means by which an end is…
Quote byHerbert Spencer · 1820–1903
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Part I: The Data of Ethics, Ethics (New York:1915), § 14, pp. 38-39.
English (original)
People ... become so preoccupied with the means by which an end is achieved, as eventually to mistake it for the end.
— Herbert Spencer
More from Herbert Spencer
All evil results from the non-adaptation of constitution to conditions. This is true of everything that lives. Does a shrub dwindle in poor soil, or become sickly when deprived of light, or die outright if removed to a cold climate? it is …
Man needed one moral constitution to fit him for his original state; he needs another to fit him for his present state; and he has been, is, and will long continue to be, in process of adaptation.
The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.
The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion.
Evil perpetually tends to disappear.
Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity.