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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

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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
Love
General
Mankind
Cause
Humanity
Causes
Conduces
Justice
Advocates
Happiness
Overflow
Good
Universal

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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.
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It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
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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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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
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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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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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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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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
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Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.
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If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.
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The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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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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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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.
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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.
William Godwin