William Godwin - Government Quotes

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Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

William Godwin

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.

William Godwin

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

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