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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
Government
Private
Conscience
Judgment
Mankind
Forget
Upon
Usurpation
Evil
Anarchist
Individual
Judgement

More quotes by William Godwin

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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
William Godwin
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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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.
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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.
William Godwin
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It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
William Godwin
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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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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Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius... he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.
William Godwin
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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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Power is not happiness.
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
William Godwin
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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.
William Godwin
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Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
William Godwin
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If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.
William Godwin
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
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We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.
William Godwin
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
William Godwin