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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
God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
William Godwin
Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
William Godwin
Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
William Godwin
But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
William Godwin
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
Power is not happiness.
William Godwin
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
Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
William Godwin
Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
William Godwin
The proper method for hastening the decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce men to intellectual uniformity but on the contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.
William Godwin
Obey this may be right but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.
William Godwin
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
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
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
The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
William Godwin
No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.
William Godwin
There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.
William Godwin
He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
William Godwin
Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.
William Godwin