# Quote — William Godwin, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

> The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness.
>
> The primary, or earliest, class of human pleasure is the pleasures of external senses.
>
> In addition to these, man is susceptible of certain secondary pleasures, as the pleasures of intellectual feeling, the pleasures of sympathy, and the pleasures of self-approbation.
>
> The secondary pleasures are probably more exquisite than the primary;
>
> Or, at least,
>
> The most desirable state of man is that in which he has access to all these sources of pleasure, and is in possession of a happiness the most varied and uninterrupted.
>
> This state is a state of high civilization.

- Author: [William Godwin](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-godwin.md)
- Book: [Enquiry Concerning Political Justice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-godwin/enquiry-concerning-political-justice.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Godwin#Enquiry_Concerning_Political_Justice_(1793)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-godwin/enquiry-concerning-political-justice/the-true-object

## More from this book

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

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-godwin/enquiry-concerning-political-justice/the-benefit-of-the.md)

> The plebeian must expect to find himself neglected and despised in proportion as he is remiss in cultivation the objects of esteem; the lord will always be surrounded with sycophants and slaves. The lord therefore has no motive to industry and exertion; no stimulus to rouse him from the lethargic 'oblivious pool', out of which every human intellect originally arose.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-godwin/enquiry-concerning-political-justice/the-plebeian-must.md)

> The evil of marriage, as is it practiced in the European countries, extends further than we have yet described. The method is for a thoughtless and romantic youth of each sex, to come together, to see each other, for a few times, and under circumstances full of delusion and then to vow eternal attachment. What is the consequence of this? In almost every instance they find themselves deceived. They are reduced to make the best of an irretrievable mistake. They are led to conceive it their wiser policy, to shut their eyes upon realities, happy, if by any perversion of intellect, they can persuade themselves that they were right in their first crude opinion of each other. Thus the institution of marriage is made a system of fraud; and men who carefully mislead their judgement in the daily affair of their life, must be expected to have a crippled judgement in every other concern.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/william-godwin/enquiry-concerning-political-justice/the-evil-of-marriage.md)