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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.

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
Read
Ally
Spirit
Adversaries
Much
Scarcely
Reads
Allies
Proper
Genius
Learning
Adversary

More quotes by William Godwin

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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education, is to provide, against the age of five and twenty, a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn. Whatever will inspire habits of industry and observation, will sufficiently answer this purpose.
William Godwin
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
William Godwin
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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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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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.
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.
William Godwin
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
William Godwin
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Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
William Godwin
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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.
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.
William Godwin
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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
William Godwin
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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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
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
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The first duty of man is to take none of the principles of conduct upon trust to do nothing without a clear and individual conviction that it is right to be done.
William Godwin