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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

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
Religion
Right
Tyrant
Tyrants

More quotes by 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.
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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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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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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
William Godwin
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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.
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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Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
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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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But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
William Godwin
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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The proper method for hastening the decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce men to intellectual uniformity but on the contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.
William Godwin
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The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind.
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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
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.
William Godwin
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
William Godwin
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.
William Godwin