“There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.”

Conclusion : The Moral of this Examination
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)
Context: Stepping out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, professed teachers of spiritual truths long presumed to deny the truths of the natural sciences. But now professed teachers of the natural sciences, stepping in turn out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, presume to deny spiritual truths. And there are many, who having discarded an authority often perverted by the influence of dominant wrong, have in its place accepted another authority which in its blank materialism affords as efficient a means for stilling conscience and defending selfish greed as any perversion of religious truth.
Mr. Spencer is the foremost representative of this authority. Widely regarded as the scientific philosopher; eulogized by his admirers as the greatest of all philosophers — as the man who has cleared and illuminated the field of philosophy by bringing into it the exact methods of science — he carries to the common mind the weight of the marvelous scientific achievements of our time as applied to the most momentous of problems. The effect is to impress it with a vague belief that modern science has proved the idea of God to be an ignorant superstition and the hope of a future life a vain delusion.

Commonly attributed to Spencer, information provided in The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes and The Survival of a Fitting Quotation. (2005) by Michael StGeorge http://anonpress.org/spencer/, indicates the attribution may have originated with the book [w:The_Big_Book_(Alcoholics_Anonymous)|Alcoholics Anonymous]]. It was used exactly as written above in the personal stories section of the first edition in 1939 and in 'Appendix II: Spiritual Experience' of all subsequent editions.
: "Contempt prior to examination" was a phrase used by William Paley, the 18th-century English Christian apologist. In A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794), he wrote:
::The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my judgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument, or any evidence whatever, viz. contempt prior to examination.
:Paley's characterization of non-believers was later modified and used by other religious authors who uniformly attributed their words to Paley. In Anglo-Israel or, The British Nation: The lost Tribes of Israel (1879), Rev. William H. Poole may have been the first to render the quotation in its more familiar and enduring form:
::There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination.
:Various authors following Rev. Poole would offer new iterations of the quotation into the early decades of the 20th century. Most of these credited William Paley, but by the early 1930s the first obscure publications to falsely attribute this quote to Spencer emerged. Its usage for decades since as a maxim in Alcoholics Anonymous and the twelve-step recovery community has popularized its erroneous association with Herbert Spencer.
Misattributed

History
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series
Variant: Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 17: Some Prospects: Cheerful and Otherwise

Inside the Spaceships

As quoted in " Prescott triumphs on slippery slopes of syntax http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1235237,00.html" by Simon Hoggart (10 June 2004); Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040609/debtext/40609-03.htm#40609-03_sbhd3 rendered this as "we now have a satisfactory solution for not only coalition forces, but the Iraqi authorities".

Post-Presidency, Nobel lecture (2002)
Context: The unchanging principles of life predate modern times. I worship Jesus Christ, whom we Christians consider to be the Prince of Peace. As a Jew, he taught us to cross religious boundaries, in service and in love. He repeatedly reached out and embraced Roman conquerors, other Gentiles, and even the more despised Samaritans.
Despite theological differences, all great religions share common commitments that define our ideal secular relationships. I am convinced that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, and others can embrace each other in a common effort to alleviate human suffering and to espouse peace.
But the present era is a challenging and disturbing time for those whose lives are shaped by religious faith based on kindness toward each other. We have been reminded that cruel and inhuman acts can be derived from distorted theological beliefs, as suicide bombers take the lives of innocent human beings, draped falsely in the cloak of God's will. With horrible brutality, neighbors have massacred neighbors in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a stranger to us — often a child – is crippled or killed. From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never want to know the number or identity of the victims.