Quote

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.

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
Right
Upon
Men
Individual
Conduct
Firsts
Conviction
Without
None
Nothing
Duty
First
Trust
Take
Principles
Done
Clear

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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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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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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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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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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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Power is not happiness.
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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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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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
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Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
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Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
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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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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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The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.
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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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If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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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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