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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
Within
Invasion
Community
Legitimate
Purpose
Purposes
Common
External
Individual
Injustice
Two
Individuals
Government
Defense
Liberty
Suppression
More quotes by William Godwin
If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
William Godwin
Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
William Godwin
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.
William Godwin
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.
William Godwin
We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
William Godwin
It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
William Godwin
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
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.
William Godwin
The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind.
William Godwin
The most desirable mode of education, is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire . . . The boy, like the man, studies because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of is own invention, or by which, by adopting, he has made his own. Everything bespeaks independence and inequality.
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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.
William Godwin
In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
William Godwin
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
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
Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
Power is not happiness.
William Godwin
The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
William Godwin
Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.
William Godwin
Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
William Godwin
God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
William Godwin