William Godwin Quotes
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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.
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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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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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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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The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.
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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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The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
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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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Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.
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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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Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.
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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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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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Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.
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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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He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.
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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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In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
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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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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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There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
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There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.
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Government can have no more than two legitimate purposes - the suppression of injustice against individuals within the community, and the common defense against external invasion.