William Godwin

Quotes

1. To conceive that compulsion and punishment are the proper means of reformation, is the sentiment of a barbarian; civilisation and science are calculated to explode so ferocious an idea. It was once universally admitted and approved; it is now necessarily upon the decline.

2. 

   The illustrious archbishop of Cambray was of more worth than his chambermaid, and there are few of us that would hesitate to pronounce, if his palace were in flames, and the life of only one of them could be preserved, which of the two ought to be preferred … Supposing the chambermaid had been my wife, my mother or my benefactor. This would not alter the truth of the proposition. The life of Fenelon would still be more valuable than that of the chambermaid; and justice, pure, unadulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable. Justice would have taught me to save the life of Fenelon at the expence of the other. What magic is there in the pronoun "my", to overturn the decisions of everlasting truth?

3. 

   The case of mere titles is so absurd that it would deserve to be treated only with ridicule were t not for the serious mischief they impose on mankind. The feudal system was a ferocious monster, devouring, where it came, all that the friend of humanity regards with attachment and love. The system of titles appears under a different form. The monster is at length destroyed, and they who followed in his train, and fattened upon the carcasses of those he slew, have stuffed his skin, and, b exhibiting it, hope still to terrify mankind into patient and pusillanimity.

4. 

   I did not hate the author of my misfortunes — truth and justice acquit me of that; I rather pitied the hard destiny to which he seemed condemned. But I thought with unspeakable loathing of those errors, in consequence of which every man is fated to be, more or less, the tyrant or the slave. I was astonished at the folly of my species, that they did not rise up as one man, and shake off chains so ignominious, and misery so insupportable. So far as related to myself, I resolved — and this resolution has never been entirety forgotten by me — to hold myself disengaged from this odious scene, and never fill the part either of the oppressor or the sufferer.

5. 

   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.

6. 

   Duty is that mode of action which constitutes the best application of the capacity of the individual to the general advantage. Right is the claim of the individual to his share of the benefit arising from his neighbors' discharge of their several duties.

7. 

   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.

8. 

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

9. 

   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.

10. 

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

11. 

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

12. 

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