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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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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
Assuming
Whenever
Consequence
Torpor
Produce
Imbecility
Trouble
Assumes
Government
Deliver
Thinking
Produces
Consequences

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My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image.
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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.
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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
William Godwin
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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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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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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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
William Godwin
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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
William Godwin
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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