Quote

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

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
Rich
Gain
Problem
Cease
Would
Generally
Lackey
Love
Gains
Lackeys
Property
Deemed
Constant
Exclusive
Universal
Admiration
Poverty
Contempt

More quotes by William Godwin

Image
Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.
William Godwin
Image
Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble.
William Godwin
Image
Above all we should not forget, that government is an evil, an usurpation upon the private judgment and individual conscience of mankind.
William Godwin
Image
Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions.
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
In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.
William Godwin
Image
All education is despotism. It is perhaps impossible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cases the tyranny implicit in obedience. Go there do that read write rise lie down - will perhaps forever be the language addressed to youth by age.
William Godwin
Image
The first duty of man is to take none of the principles of conduct upon trust to do nothing without a clear and individual conviction that it is right to be done.
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
Everything that is usually understood by the term co-operation is, in some degree, an evil.
William Godwin
Image
Justice is the sum of all moral duty.
William Godwin
Image
The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children.
William Godwin
Image
As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.
William Godwin
Image
What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?
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
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
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
Image
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.
William Godwin
Image
Of Belief Human mathematics, so to speak, like the length of life, are subject to the doctrine of chances.
William Godwin
Image
There is no sphere in which a human being can be supposed to act where one mode of reasoning will not, in every given instance, be more reasonable than any other mode. That mode the being is bound by every principle of justice to pursue.
William Godwin