English - Writer | March 3, 1756 - April 7, 1836
We have, all of us, our duties. Every action of our lives, and every word that we utter, will either conduce to or detract from the discharge of our duty.
William Godwin
ActionDutyWillUsWordEither
We cannot, any of us, do all the things of which mankind stand in need; we must have fellow-labourers.
StandNeedThingsMankindUsMust
The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness.
HappinessPoliticalMoralTrue
Government, as it was forced upon mankind by their vices, so has it commonly been the creature of their ignorance and mistake.
IgnoranceGovernmentMistakeVices
Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.
GovernmentInjusticeBeenEffect
The most desirable state of mankind is that which maintains general security with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence.
IndependenceSecurityIndividualMost
Duty is that mode of action which constitutes the best application of the capacity of the individual to the general advantage.
BestActionDutyIndividualCapacity
The extent of our progress in the cultivation of knowledge is unlimited.
KnowledgeProgressOurUnlimited
Soundness of understanding is connected with freedom of enquiry; consequently, opinion should, as far as public security will admit, be exempted from restraint.
FreedomOpinionUnderstandingAdmit
The evils that arise to us from the structure of the material universe are neither trivial nor few, yet the history of political society sufficiently shows that man is, of all other beings, the most formidable enemy to man.
HistoryManSocietyPoliticalEnemy
When we look on the roses and gaiety of youth, the mournful idea of mortality is altogether alien to our thoughts. We have heard of it as a speculation and a tale, but nothing but experience can bring it home to us.
HomeExperienceThoughtsYouthLook
The question now afloat in the world respecting 'things as they are' is the most interesting that can be presented to the human mind. While one party pleads for reformation and change, the other extols in the warmest terms the existing constitution of society.
ChangeMindWorldSocietyPartyNow
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