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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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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
Love
Gains
Lackeys
Property
Deemed
Constant
Exclusive
Universal
Admiration
Poverty
Contempt
Rich
Gain
Problem
Cease
Would
Generally
Lackey

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Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
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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.
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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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Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.
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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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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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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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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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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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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Whenever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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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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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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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.
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