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William Godwin Quotes

1756–1836 England

William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher, educationalist, novelist, historian and biographer. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism.

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Random William Godwin quote

29 quotes

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

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

A common mortal periodically selected by his fellow-citizens to watch over their own interests, can never be supposed to possess this stupendous virtue.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Privilege is a regulation rendering a few men, and those only, by the accident of their birth, eligible to certain situations.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

The proper method for hastening the decay of error is not by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but on the contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient.

The pistol and dagger may as easily be made the auxiliaries of vice, as of virtue.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Nothing can be of more importance than to separate prejudice and mistake on the one hand from reason and demonstration on the other.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Democracy is a system of government according to which every member of society is considered as a man and nothing more.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

The benefit of the governed is made to lie on one side and the benefit of the governors on the other.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Truth is powerful, and, if not instantly, at least by slow degrees, may make good her possession. Gleams of good sense may penetrate through the thickest clouds of error.

Anarchy, in its own nature, is an evil of short duration. The more horrible are the mischiefs it inflicts, the more does it hasten to a close.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Government in reality, as has abundantly appeared, is a question of force, and not of consent.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

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

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Men may one day feel that they are partakers of a common nature, and that true freedom and perfect equity, like food and air, are pregnant with benefit to every constitution.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

The man that does not know himself not to be at the mercy of other men, that does not feel that he is invulnerable to all the vicissitudes of fortune, is incapable of a constant and inflexible virtue.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but it offers new occasions and temptations for the commission of it.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

The pleasures of self-approbation, together with the right cultivation of all our pleasures, require individual independence. Without independence men cannot become either wise, or useful, or happy.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Ministers and favorites are a sort of people who have a state prisoner in their custody, the whole management of whose understanding and actions they can easily engross.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

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

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Godwin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.