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

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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.
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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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If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.
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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.
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But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.
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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
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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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The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
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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 lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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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 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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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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