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

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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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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.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
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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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
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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 virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
William Godwin
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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.
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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.
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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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
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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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.
William Godwin
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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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Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
William Godwin