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.

William Godwin

Categorized in : Lying Writing Forever

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

William Godwin

education inspirational book

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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Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.

William Godwin

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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.

William Godwin

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Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.

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.

William Godwin

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The wise man is satisfied with nothing.

William Godwin

satisfied wise men

Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.

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.

William Godwin

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The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.

William Godwin

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The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind.

William Godwin

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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.

William Godwin

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As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle.

William Godwin

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Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.

William Godwin

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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.

William Godwin

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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.

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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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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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.

William Godwin

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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.

William Godwin

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