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

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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
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The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.
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Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
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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.
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Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.
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He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.
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Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes - the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defense against external invasion.
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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.
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My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.
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Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
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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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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
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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.
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If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
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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.
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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