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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
Real
Semblance
Mockery
Activity
Study
Desire
Without

More quotes by William Godwin

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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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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
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The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.
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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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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
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To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
William Godwin
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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 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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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.
William Godwin
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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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Whenever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.
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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.
William Godwin
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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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We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.
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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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Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
William Godwin
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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.
William Godwin
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
William Godwin
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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
William Godwin