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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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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
Gift
Prerogatives
Beings
Inhabiting
Living
Eminently
Earth
Prerogative
Reason
Globe
Men
Globes
Distinguished
Consists

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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
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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.
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
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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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Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education, is to provide, against the age of five and twenty, a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn. Whatever will inspire habits of industry and observation, will sufficiently answer this purpose.
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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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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.
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The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive the right in certain cases to do as we list and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.
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Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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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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We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
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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.
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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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If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
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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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