William Godwin Quotes
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Power is not happiness.
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Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
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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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Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
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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.
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Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
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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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No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and without pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service.
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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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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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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
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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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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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By right, as the word is employed in this subject, has always been understood discretion, that is, a full and complete power of either doing a thing or omitting it, without the person's becoming liable to animadversion or censure from another, that is, in other words, without his incurring any degree of turpitude or guilt. Now in this sense I affirm that man has no rights, no discretionary power whatever.
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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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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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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 lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.
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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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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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In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.
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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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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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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 wise man is satisfied with nothing.
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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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My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
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Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
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