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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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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there do that read write rise lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.
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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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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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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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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 lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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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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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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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.
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Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.
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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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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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Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
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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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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
William Godwin