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Power is not happiness.

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
Happiness
Evil
Power

More quotes by William Godwin

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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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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.
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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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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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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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.
William Godwin
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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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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.
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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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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
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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.
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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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.
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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There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.
William Godwin