“Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.”
Vol. 2, bk. 6, ch. 1
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
William Godwin 36
English journalist, political philosopher and novelist 1756–1836Related quotes
Ch 2
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Homo

“It is only the fear of God, can deliver us from the fear of man.”
From his sermon "Ministerial Character and Duty". Usually misquoted as "It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the fear of man."

Speech in Conakry, Guinea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JDct2pJeZM (25 June 2007)
Speeches
State Education: A Help or Hindrance?
Context: If must also be remembered that, unless men are left to their own resources, they do not know what is or what is not possible for them. If Government half a century ago had provided us all with dinners and breakfasts, it would be the practice of our orators to-day to assume the impossibility of our providing for ourselves.

As cited in The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (2007), Alan Greenspan, Penguin Press, Chapter 4 (Private Citizen), p. 87 : ISBN 15942 01315
1980s

Government (1820)
Context: Whenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists.<!-- (1824 edition) vol. 4, p. 493