William Godwin Quotes

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William Godwin

Profession : Writer

Birth : March 3, 1756

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is by teaching every man to think for himself.

William Godwin

God himself has no right to be a tyrant.

William Godwin

The soul of man is one of those subtle and evanescent substances that, as long as they remain still, the organ of sight does not remark; it must become agitated to become visible.

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.

William Godwin

Woe to the man who is always busy - hurried in a turmoil of engagements, from occupation to occupation, and with no seasons interposed of recollection, contemplation and repose! Such a man must inevitably be gross and vulgar, and hard and indelicate - the sort of man with whom no generous spirit would desire to hold intercourse.

William Godwin

There is a class of persons whose souls are essentially non-conductors to the electricity of sentiment, and whose minds seem to be filled with their own train of thinking, convictions, and purposes to the exclusion of everything else.

William Godwin

If a thing be really good, it can be shown to be such.

William Godwin

Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.

William Godwin

In the summer of 1791, I gave up my concern in the 'New Annual Register,' the historical part of which I had written for seven years, and abdicated, I hope forever, the task of performing a literary labour, the nature of which should be dictated by anything but the promptings of my own mind.

William Godwin

Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

William Godwin

A just and a brave man acts fearlessly and with explicitness; he does not shun, but court, the scrutiny of mankind; he lives in the face of day, and the whole world confesses the clearness of his spirit and the rectitude of his conduct.

William Godwin

Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.

William Godwin

It is of no consequence whether a man of genius have learned either art or science before twenty-five: all that is necessary, or even desirable, is that his powers should be unfolded, his emulation roused, and his habits conducted into a right channel.

William Godwin

Sympathy is one of the principles most widely rooted in our nature: we rejoice to see ourselves reflected in another; and, perversely enough, we sometimes have a secret pleasure in seeing the sin which dwells in ourselves existing under a deformed and monstrous aspect in another.

William Godwin

The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness.

William Godwin

The most desirable state of mankind is that which maintains general security with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence.

William Godwin

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.

William Godwin

In the graver and more sentimental communication of man and man, the head still bears the superior sway; in the unreserved intimacies of man and woman, the heart is ever uppermost. Feeling is the main thing, and judgment passes for little.

William Godwin

But the watchful care of the parent is endless. The youth is never free from the danger of grating interference.

William Godwin

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.

William Godwin