William Godwin Quotes

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William Godwin

Profession : Writer

Birth : March 3, 1756

Love conquers all difficulties, surmounts all obstacles, and effects what to any other power would be impossible.

William Godwin

Religion is among the most beautiful and most natural of all things - that religion which 'sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind,' which endows every object of sense with a living soul, which finds in the system of nature whatever is holy, mysterious and venerable, and inspires the bosom with sentiments of awe and veneration.

William Godwin

The extent of our progress in the cultivation of knowledge is unlimited.

William Godwin

There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers; we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.

William Godwin

There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.

William Godwin

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

William Godwin

Law is made for man and not man for the law. Wherever we can be sure that the most valuable interests of a nation require that we should decide one way, that way we ought to decide.

William Godwin

The true key of the universe is love.

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.

William Godwin

Everything in the world is conducted by gradual process. This seems to be the great principle of harmony in the universe.

William Godwin

The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.

William Godwin

Self-deception is so far from impossible that it is one of the most ordinary phenomena with which we are acquainted. Nothing is more usual than for a man to impute his actions to honorable motives when it is nearly demonstrable that they flowed from some corrupt and contemptible force.

William Godwin

Invisible things are the only realities; invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.

William Godwin

In contemplation and reverie, one thought introduces another perpetually; and it is by similarity, or the hooking of one upon the other, that the process of thinking is carried on.

William Godwin

Men who do not contend in earnest can have little warmth and fervor in what they undertake, and are more than half prepared to betray the cause, in the vindication of which they have engaged their services.

William Godwin

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions.

William Godwin

Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire.

William Godwin

Innocence is not virtue. Virtue demands the active employment of an ardent mind in the promotion of the general good. No man can be eminently virtuous who is not accustomed to an extensive range of reflection.

William Godwin

The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

William Godwin

Harshness and unkindness are relative. The appearance of them may be the fruits of the greatest kindness.

William Godwin