Quote

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.

William Godwin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
General
Duty
Possible
Constitutes
Individual
Mode
Action
Application
Part
Benefit
Best
Benefits
Capacity

More quotes by William Godwin

Image
Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
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
Image
Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
William Godwin
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
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
Image
Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
William Godwin
Image
Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
William Godwin
Image
Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
William Godwin
Image
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
Image
The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
William Godwin
Image
In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
William Godwin
Image
Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
William Godwin
Image
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
Image
He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
William Godwin
Image
The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
William Godwin
Image
But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
William Godwin
Image
Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
William Godwin
Image
Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
William Godwin