Quote

Power is not happiness.

William Godwin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Godwin
Age: 80 †
Born: 1756
Born: March 3
Died: 1836
Died: April 7
Journalist
Novelist
Philosopher
Political Philosopher
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Wisbech
Cambridgeshire
Power
Happiness
Evil

More quotes by William Godwin

Image
If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.
William Godwin
Image
We are so curiously made that one atom put in the wrong place in our original structure will often make us unhappy for life.
William Godwin
Image
Literature, taken in all its bearings, forms the grand line of demarcation between the human and the animal kingdoms.
William Godwin
Image
No maxim can be more pernicious than that which would teach us to consult the temper of the times, and to tell only so much as we imagine our contemporaries will be able to bear.
William Godwin
Image
To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation is the sentiment of a barbarian.
William Godwin
Image
Whenever government assumes to deliver us from the trouble of thinking for ourselves, the only consequences it produces are those of torpor and imbecility.
William Godwin
Image
If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.
William Godwin
Image
The real or supposed rights of man are of two kinds, active and passive the right in certain cases to do as we list and the right we possess to the forbearance or assistance of other men. The first of these a just philosophy will probably induce us universally to explode.
William Godwin
Image
He has no right to his life when his duty calls him to resign it. Other men are bound ... to deprive him of life or liberty, if that should appear in any case to be indispensably necessary to prevent a greater evil.
William Godwin
Image
My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
William Godwin
Image
Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.
William Godwin
Image
Study with desire is real activity without desire it is but the semblance and mockery of activity.
William Godwin
Image
The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself.
William Godwin
Image
There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination.
William Godwin
Image
Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.
William Godwin
Image
It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.
William Godwin
Image
Invisible things are the only realities invisible things alone are the things that shall remain.
William Godwin
Image
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
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
Books are the depositary of everything that is most honourable to man.
William Godwin