Quote

Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.

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
Right
Flows
Every
Spheres
Men
Flow
Atheism
Infringed
Expect
Neighbours
Shall
Discretion
Nature
Neighbour
Certain
Sphere

More quotes by William Godwin

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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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Power is not happiness.
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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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.
William Godwin
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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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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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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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
William Godwin
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But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
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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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
William Godwin
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
William Godwin
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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.
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
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
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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.
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