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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.

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

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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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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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The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive the right in certain cases to do as we list and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.
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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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If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
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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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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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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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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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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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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 lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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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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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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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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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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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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