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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

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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
True
Various
Rejoiced
Thinking
Train
Pupil
Mere
Trains
Lead
Pupils
Objects
Render
Education
Copy
Reading
Copies
Rather
Object
Lamented

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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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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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Whenever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.
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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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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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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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Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
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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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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 gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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One of the prerogatives by which man is eminently distinguished from all other living beings inhabiting this globe of earth, consists in the gift of reason.
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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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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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.
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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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Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
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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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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 revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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