A Quote by William Godwin

The most desirable state of mankind is that which maintains general security with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence.

William Godwin

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Independence Desirable Encroachment General Individual Individual Independence Mankind Most Security Smallest State Which

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William Godwin
English - Novelist
March 3, 1756 - April 7, 1836

The function of State coercion is to override individual coercion, and, of course, coercion exercised by any association of individuals within the State. It is by this means that it maintains liberty of expression, security of person and property, genuine freedom of contract, the rights of public meeting and association, and finally its own power to carry out common objects undefeated by the recalcitrance of individual members.

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

Storytelling awakens us to that which is real. Honest. . . . it transcends the individual. . . . Those things that are most personal are most general, and are, in turn, most trusted. Stories bind. . . . They are basic to who we are. A story composite personality which grows out of its community. It maintains a stability within that community, providing common knowledge as to how things are, how things should be -- knowledge based on experience. These stories become the conscience of the group. They belong to everyone.

Terry Tempest Williams

Individual liberty, the basic underpinning of American society, requires constant defense against the encroachment of the state.

Paul Singer

Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future.

Jacob Burckhardt

It is hope that maintains most of mankind.

Sophocles

There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.

John Stuart Mill

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

An independent state does not pay too dear a price for its independence in accepting the sufferings of war when it cannot avoid them; a state which has lost its independence may find at least some compensation in the fact that its protector procures for it peace with its neighbours.

Theodor Mommsen

So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent class, which exercises authority over the rest. And the smallest class is the one which naturally possesses that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom.

Plato

The most desirable mode of education, is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire . . . The boy, like the man, studies because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of is own invention, or by which, by adopting, he has made his own. Everything bespeaks independence and inequality.

William Godwin

Through artists mankind becomes an individual, in that they unite the past and the future in the present. They are the higher organ of the soul, where the life spirits of entire external mankind meet and in which inner mankind first acts.

Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The only holiday of independence which I can never leave out is the celebration of the independence of the Jewish State of Israel.

Milos Zeman

Individual security bargains may be located by the process of security analysis practically at any time. They can be bought with good overall results at all periods except when the general market itself is clearly in a selling range for investors. They show up to best advantage during the years in which the market remains in a relatively narrow and neutral area.

Benjamin Graham

Also, that which is desirable in itself is more desirable than what is desirable per accidens.

Aristotle

I would argue that we have a patriotic duty to move toward energy independence and clean energy. It is a matter of national security - energy security, climate security, economic security, job security, everything.

Van Jones

It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

A Quote by William Godwin

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