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Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

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
Without
Real
Semblance
Mockery
Activity
Study
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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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.
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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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What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
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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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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.
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It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
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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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Our judgment will always suspect those weapons that can be used with equal prospect of success on both sides.
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Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.
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Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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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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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.
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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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Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius... he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.
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Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.
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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
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The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
William Godwin