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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
Active
Continue
Influence
Principles
Desire
Operate
Cannot
Encouraging
Perseverance
Principle

More quotes by William Godwin

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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
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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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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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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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The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
William Godwin
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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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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
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The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
William Godwin
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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
William Godwin
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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.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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.
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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
William Godwin
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Power is not happiness.
William Godwin
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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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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.
William Godwin