Quote

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

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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
Character
Periods
Despotism
Kind
Atheism
Punish
Men
Revolution
Pregnant
Thoughts
Opinions
Engendered
Liberty
Attempt
Scrutinize
Opinion
Tyranny
Peculiarly
Existence
Period
Odious
War
Kinds
Indignation

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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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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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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 wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.
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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
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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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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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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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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.
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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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If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.
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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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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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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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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
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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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