Quote

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.

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
Imagine
Consult
Teach
Contemporaries
Times
Maxim
Tell
Pernicious
Able
Maxims
Much
Temper
Would
Bear
Bears

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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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The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.
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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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Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
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It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education, is to provide, against the age of five and twenty, a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn. Whatever will inspire habits of industry and observation, will sufficiently answer this purpose.
William Godwin
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The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.
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The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive the right in certain cases to do as we list and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.
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Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
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The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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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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Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.
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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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God himself has no right to be a tyrant.
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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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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.
William Godwin
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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Obey this may be right but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.
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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.
William Godwin
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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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Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
William Godwin