William Godwin Short Quotes

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

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

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

William Godwin
The virtue of a human being is the application of his capacity to the general good.

William Godwin
Perfectibility is one of the most unequivocal characteristics of the human species.

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

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

William Godwin
He that revels in a well-chosen library has innumerable dishes, all of admirable flavor.

William Godwin
What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?

William Godwin
We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.

William Godwin
It is probable that there is no one thing that it is of eminent importance for a child to learn.

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

William Godwin
The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation.

William Godwin
Study with desire is real activity; without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.

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

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

William Godwin
The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.

William Godwin
Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a man at which nations tremble.

William Godwin
If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.

William Godwin
In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.

William Godwin
If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book,

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

William Godwin
It is a most mistaken way of teaching men to feel they are brothers, by imbuing their mind with perpetual hatred.
On the subject of war

William Godwin
Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.

William Godwin
The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.

William Godwin
Self-respect to be nourished in the mind of the pupil, is one of the most valuable results of a well conducted education.

William Godwin
Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.

William Godwin
The subtleties of mathematics defecate the grossness of our apprehension, and supply the elements of a sounder and severer logic.

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
Whenever truth stands in the mind unaccompanied by the evidence upon which it depends, it cannot properly be said to be apprehended at all.

William Godwin