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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.

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
Principles
Desire
Operate
Cannot
Encouraging
Perseverance
Principle
Active
Continue
Influence

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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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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.
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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.
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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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If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.
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Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit.
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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.
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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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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.
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There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.
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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 great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
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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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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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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.
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Power is not happiness.
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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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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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