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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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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
Mean
Reformation
Sentiment
Conceive
Compulsion
Sentiments
Proper
Punishment
Barbarian
Means
Barbarians
More quotes by William Godwin
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
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
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
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
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.
William Godwin
It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
William Godwin
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
Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
William Godwin
The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
William Godwin
In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
William Godwin
Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
William Godwin
Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
William Godwin
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.
William Godwin
My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
William Godwin
We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.
William Godwin
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
But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
William Godwin
We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
William Godwin
Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
William Godwin
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.
William Godwin
