“Our profession is the profession of justice." [It is thus that the prejudices of men universally teach them to colour the most desperate cause to which they have determined to adhere.] "We, who are thieves without a licence, are at open war with another set of men who are thieves according to law.”
Source: The Adventures of Caleb Williams: Or, Things as They Are
“But the world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours, are only more artful.”
“Pride always wants a little smarting.”
“Why did she thus obstinately cling to an ill-starred, unhappy person?”
“The habit is, for a thoughtless and romantic youth of each sex to come together, to see each other for a few times and under circumstances full of delusion, and then to vow to each other eternal attachment. What is the consequence of this? In almost every instance they find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make the best of an irretrievable mistake... The institution of marriage is a system of fraud; and men who carefully mislead their judgements in the daily affair of their life, must always have a crippled judgement in every other concern... Add to this, that marriage is an affair of property, and the worst of all properties... So long as I seek to engross one woman to myself, and to prohibit my neighbour from proving his superior desert and reaping the fruits of it, I am guilty of the most odious of all monopolies.”
Source: Political Justice, 1793
“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.”
“The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.”
Source: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness
“It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn. The true object of juvenile education, is to provide, against the age of five and twenty, a mind well regulated, active, and prepared to learn. Whatever will inspire habits of industry and observation, will sufficiently answer this purpose.”
Source: The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners, and Literature. In a Series of Essays
“All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there; do that; read; write; rise; lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.”
Source: The enquirer. Reflections on education, manners, and literature. In a series of essays
“To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness: By William Godwin
“If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness: By William Godwin
“Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.”
“The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.”
Source: Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries
“Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.”
Source: Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions, and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
“The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.”
Source: Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions, and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
“As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.”
Source: The Enquirer
“He that loves reading has everything within his reach.”
Source: The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature, in a Series of Essays
“Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius... he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.”
Source: The enquirer. Reflections on education, manners, and literature. In a series of essays
“A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, had contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin.”
Source: Godwin's
“Obey; this may be right; but beware of reverence.... Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade; the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness
“Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny.... An attempt to scrutinize men's thoughts and punish their opinions is of all kinds of despotism the most odious: yet this is peculiarly character of a period of revolution.... There is no period more at war with the existence of liberty.”
“The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive; the right in certain cases to do as we list; and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness
“By right, as the word is employed in this subject, has always been understood discretion, that is, a full and complete power of either doing a thing or omitting it, without the person's becoming liable to animadversion or censure from another, that is, in other words, without his incurring any degree of turpitude or guilt. Now in this sense I affirm that man has no rights, no discretionary power whatever.”
Source: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness
“There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.”
“He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.”
Source: Enquiry concerning political justice: with selections from Godwin's other writings
“In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.”
Source: The enquirer. Reflections on education, manners, and literature. In a series of essays
“Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.”
Source: The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature, in a Series of Essays
“Hereditary wealth is in reality a premium paid to idleness.”
Source: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness
“Duty is that mode of action on the part of the individual which constitutes the best possible application of his capacity to the general benefit.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness: By William Godwin
“Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.”
Source: The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature, in a Series of Essays
“No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.”
Source: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice,: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness
“The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.”
Source: An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness
“The wise man is satisfied with nothing.”
“It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.”
“Whenever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.”
Source: Reflections on Political Justice: Selections from the Writings of William Godwin
“Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness
“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.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice: And Its Influence On Morals And Happiness
“Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.”
“My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.”
Source: Caleb Williams
“Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.”
Source: The enquirer. Reflections on education, manners, and literature. In a series of essays
“Books gratify and excite our curiosity in innumerable ways.”
Source: The enquirer. Reflections on education, manners, and literature. In a series of essays
“Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.”
Source: Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Easyread Comfort Edition
“Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.”
“The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.”
Source: Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries
“He that revels in a well-chosen library, has innumerable dishes, and all of admirable flavour.”
“Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.”
Source: Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century in England
“Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.”
Source: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness: By William Godwin
“Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.”
“If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book.”
Source: Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
“The cause of justice is the cause of humanity. Its advocates should overflow with universal good will. We should love this cause, for it conduces to the general happiness of mankind.”
Source: An enquiry concerning political justice, and its influence on general virtue and happiness
