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Quote by William Godwin

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The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature, in a Series of Essays

This book is a compilation of essays that delve into the realms of education, social etiquette, and literary appreciation. more

Author

William Godwin
William Godwin

William Godwin was an English journalist, writer, and philosopher known for his contributions to liberal and socialist ideas. He is particularly famous for his work 'Enquiry Concerning Political Justice', which outlined theories on freedom, equality, and property. Born on March 3, 1756, he passed away on April 7, 1836. more

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“We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.”

“One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.”

“History is valuable, to begin with, because it is true; and this, though not the whole of its value, is the foundation and condition of all the rest. That all knowledge, as such, is in some degree good, would appear to be at least probable; and the knowledge of every historical fact possesses this element of goodness, even if it posses no other.”