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

More quotes by William Godwin

Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
William Godwin
Image
Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
William Godwin
Image
Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
William Godwin
Image
What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
William Godwin
Image
It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.
William Godwin
Image
The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
William Godwin
Image
What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
William Godwin
Image
Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
William Godwin
Image
We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.
William Godwin
Image
God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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
If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.
William Godwin
Image
Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
William Godwin
Image
The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.
William Godwin