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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.

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
Hereditary
Premium
Idleness
Paid
Wealth
Reality

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The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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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.
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We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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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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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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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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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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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 execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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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Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit.
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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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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
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