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Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.

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
Men
Tremble
Desired
Security
Name
Nations
Happiness
Peace
Power

More quotes by 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.
William Godwin
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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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Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
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In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.
William Godwin
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Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius... he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
William Godwin
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.
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.
William Godwin
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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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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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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.
William Godwin