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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
Premium
Idleness
Paid
Wealth
Reality
Hereditary

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The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
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Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes - the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defense against external invasion.
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Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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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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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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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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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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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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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 subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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He that loves reading has everything within his reach.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
William Godwin
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All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there do that read write rise lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.
William Godwin
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
William Godwin
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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
William Godwin
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin