William Godwin

In infamy, it is wisely provided that he who stands highest in the ranks of society has the heaviest load to sustain.

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.

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.

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

Social man regards all those by whom he is surrounded as enemies, or beings who may become such. He is ever on his guard lest his plain speaking should be willfully perverted, or should assume a meaning he never thought of, through the animosity or prejudice of the individual that hears him.

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.

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.

The mind of a child is no less vagrant than his steps; it pursues the gossamer and flies from object to object, lawless and unconfined, and it is equally necessary to the development of his frame that his thoughts and his body should be free from fetters.

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

Act up to the magnitude of your destiny.

With respect to my religious sentiments, I have the firmest assurance and tranquillity. I have faithfully endeavoured to improve the faculties and opportunities God has given me, and I am perfectly easy about the consequences.

The man who plays his part upon the theatre of life almost always maintains what may be called an artificial character.

It is one of the oldest maxims of moral prudence: Do not, by aspiring to what is impracticable, lose the opportunity of doing the good you can effect!

We have, all of us, our duties. Every action of our lives, and every word that we utter, will either conduce to or detract from the discharge of our duty.

How are the faculties of man to be best developed and his happiness secured? The state of a king is not favorable to this, nor the state of the noble and rich men of the earth. All this is artificial life, the inventions of vanity and grasping ambition, by which we have spoiled the man of nature and of pure, simple, and undistorted impulses.

We cannot, any of us, do all the things of which mankind stand in need; we must have fellow-labourers.

The world is all alike. Those that seem better than their neighbours are only more artful. They mean the same thing, though they take a different road.

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

Government, as it was forced upon mankind by their vices, so has it commonly been the creature of their ignorance and mistake.

God is a being who is himself the cause of his own existence. His prerogative is to perceive before there was anything to be perceived. He is the creator of the universe; He operated upon nothing and turned it into something.