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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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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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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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.
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Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
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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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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
William Godwin
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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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Power is not happiness.
William Godwin
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Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
William Godwin
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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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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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
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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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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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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 wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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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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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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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
William Godwin