Quote

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.

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
Present
Taken
Future
Past
Come
Necessarily
Image
Thoughts

More quotes by William Godwin

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If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
William Godwin
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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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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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.
William Godwin
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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.
William Godwin
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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.
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.
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.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
William Godwin
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Obey this may be right but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.
William Godwin
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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
William Godwin
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Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.
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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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
William Godwin
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
William Godwin
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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
William Godwin
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
William Godwin
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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
William Godwin