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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

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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
Behinds
Behind
Memories
Term
Creature
Natural
Ended
Men
Leaves
Life
Memory
Creatures

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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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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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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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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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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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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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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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.
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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
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Power is not happiness.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.
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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
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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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Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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