198 Quotes by William Godwin

Learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius . . . he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.

Obey; this may be right; but beware of reverence. Government is nothing but regulated force; force is its appropriate claim upon your attention. It is the business of individuals to persuade; the tendency of concentrated strength, is only to give consistency and permanence to an influence more compendious than persuasion.

For there is such a thing as a broken spirit.

Books have been handed down from generation to generation, as the true teachers of piety and the love of God, that represent him as so merciless and tyrannical a despot, that, if they were considered otherwise than through the medium of prejudice, they could inspire nothing but hatred. It seems that the impression we derive from a book, depends much less on its real contents, than upon the temper of mind and preparation with which we read it.

A soldier is a man whose business it is to kill those who never offended him, and who are the innocent martyrs of other men's iniquities. Whatever may become of the abstract question of the justifiableness of war, it seems impossible that the soldier should not be a depraved and unnatural thing.

The most desirable mode of education. . . . is that which is careful that all the acquisitions of the pupil shall be preceded and accompanied by desire . . . The boy, like the man, studies because he desires it. He proceeds upon a plan of is own invention, or by which, by adopting, he has made his own. Everything bespeaks independence and inequality.

Once annihilate the quackery of government, and the most homebred understanding might be strong enough to detect the artifices of the state juggler that would mislead him.

How can any one have genuine happiness, unless in proportion as he looks round, and, "behold, every thing is very good?

The wise man is satisfied with nothing.