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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
Security
Name
Nations
Happiness
Peace
Power
Men
Tremble
Desired

More quotes by William Godwin

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Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
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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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Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
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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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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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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.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
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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.
William Godwin
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
William Godwin
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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
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.
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If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.
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.
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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 virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
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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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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