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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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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
Thinking
Method
Regulation
Intellectual
Reduce
Teaching
Decay
Class
Classes
Hastening
Force
Error
Brute
Every
Proper
Uniformity
Men
Errors
Endeavour
Think
Contrary
Brutes

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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
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A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, had contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin.
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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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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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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.
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
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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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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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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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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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.
William Godwin
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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
William Godwin
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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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.
William Godwin
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
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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.
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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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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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Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.
William Godwin