Author Profile
William Godwin
1756 – 1836 • English • Writer
68
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 68 quotesIn infamy, it is wisely provided that he who stands highest in the ranks of society has the heaviest load to sustain.— 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 was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.— William Godwin
Harshness and unkindness are relative. The appearance of them may be the fruits of the greatest kindness.— William Godwin
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.— 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
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.— William Godwin
The philosophy of the wisest man that ever existed, is mainly derived from the act of introspection.— William Godwin
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.— William Godwin
The man who plays his part upon the theatre of life almost always maintains what may be called an artificial character.— William Godwin
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!— William Godwin
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.— William Godwin
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.— William Godwin
We cannot, any of us, do all the things of which mankind stand in need; we must have fellow-labourers.— William Godwin
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.— William Godwin