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

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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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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.
William Godwin
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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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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As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.
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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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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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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
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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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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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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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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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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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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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