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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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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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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
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A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, had contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin.
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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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We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.
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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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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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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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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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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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The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive the right in certain cases to do as we list and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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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.
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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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There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.
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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
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