Quote

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
Desired
Security
Name
Nations
Happiness
Peace
Power
Men
Tremble

More quotes by William Godwin

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We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
William Godwin
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All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there do that read write rise lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.
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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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
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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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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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
William Godwin
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
William Godwin
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The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
William Godwin
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If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
William Godwin
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
William Godwin
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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
William Godwin
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Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
William Godwin
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Obey this may be right but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.
William Godwin
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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.
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