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Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.

William Godwin

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William Godwin
Age: 80 †
Born: 1756
Born: March 3
Died: 1836
Died: April 7
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Political Philosopher
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Wisbech
Cambridgeshire
Mankind
Forget
Upon
Usurpation
Evil
Anarchist
Individual
Judgement
Government
Private
Conscience
Judgment

More quotes by William Godwin

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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
William Godwin
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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
William Godwin
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My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
William Godwin
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Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
William Godwin
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
William Godwin
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Power is not happiness.
William Godwin
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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
William Godwin
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All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there do that read write rise lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.
William Godwin
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The first duty of man is to take none of the principles of conduct upon trust to do nothing without a clear and individual conviction that it is right to be done.
William Godwin
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
William Godwin
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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
William Godwin
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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
William Godwin
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Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
William Godwin
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We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
William Godwin
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The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive the right in certain cases to do as we list and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.
William Godwin
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A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, had contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin.
William Godwin
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Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
William Godwin
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The most desirable mode of education, is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire . . . The boy, like the man, studies because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of is own invention, or by which, by adopting, he has made his own. Everything bespeaks independence and inequality.
William Godwin
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As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.
William Godwin
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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
William Godwin