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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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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
Common
External
Individual
Injustice
Two
Individuals
Government
Defense
Liberty
Suppression
Within
Invasion
Community
Legitimate
Purpose
Purposes

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If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.
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Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
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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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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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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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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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In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.
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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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But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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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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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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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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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.
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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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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
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