“Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.”

— William Godwin

Vol. 1, bk. 1, ch. 2
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species." by William Godwin?

William Godwin 36

English journalist, political philosopher and novelist 1756–1836

Related quotes

“The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment in the most beautiful manner.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

The Spirit of Caricature (1901)

“Absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics.”

Thomas Nagel (1937) American philosopher

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) American economist and diplomat

Source: The Age of Uncertainty (1977), Chapter 12, p. 330

“Precisely the way on which the species reaches its perfection, every individual human being (one earlier, one later) must have traversed, too.”

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) writer, philosopher, publicist, and art critic

Eben die Bahn, aus welcher das Geschlecht zu seiner Vollkommenheit gelangt, muß jeder einzelne Mensch (der früher, der später) erst durchlaufen haben.
The Education of Mankind, § 93

“Only the most perfect human being can design the most perfect philosophy.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

Fichte Studies § 651

“I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

As quoted in Challenge of a Liberal Faith (1988), by George N. Marshall, Ch. 3 : A Contemporary Religion, p. 34
Context: I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian, but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination.