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" My thoughts will be taken up with the future or the past, with what is to come or what has been. Of the present there is necessarily no image. "
William Godwin
Image
Past
Future
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" Revolution is engendered by an indignation with tyranny, yet is itself pregnant with tyranny. "
William Godwin
Itself
Pregnant
Revolution
" Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it. "
William Godwin
Injustice
Government
Effect
" We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity. "
William Godwin
Capacity
Think
Power
" Perseverance is an active principle, and cannot continue to operate but under the influence of desire. "
William Godwin
Desire
Active
Influence
" The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself. "
William Godwin
Desires
He
Reason
" How nations and races of men are to be so governed as may be most conducive to the improvement and happiness of all is one of the most interesting questions that can be offered to our consideration. "
William Godwin
Men
Interesting
Improvement
" Love conquers all difficulties, surmounts all obstacles, and effects what to any other power would be impossible. "
William Godwin
Any
Obstacles
Love
" My temper is of a recluse and contemplative cast; had it been otherwise, I should, perhaps, on some former occasions, have entered into the active concerns of the world and not have been connected with it merely as a writer of books. "
William Godwin
Connected
Books
Active
" Social man regards all those by whom he is surrounded as enemies, or beings who may become such. He is ever on his guard lest his plain speaking should be willfully perverted, or should assume a meaning he never thought of, through the animosity or prejudice of the individual that hears him. "
William Godwin
Thought
Man
Meaning
" I am now in the full maturity of my age and vigor of my mind. Persons of various descriptions have repeatedly solicited me to turn my mind to dramatical composition. It was, indeed, the first amusement of my thoughts in my school-boy cell. "
William Godwin
Mind
Thoughts
Age
" 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. "
William Godwin
Right
Man
Men
" There is scarcely an instant that passes over our heads that may not have its freight of infamy. How ought we to watch over our thoughts, that we may not so much as imagine any enormity! "
William Godwin
Watch
How
Imagine
" Everything in the world is conducted by gradual process. This seems to be the great principle of harmony in the universe. "
William Godwin
Great
Process
Harmony
" The great model of the affection of love in human beings is the sentiment which subsists between parents and children. "
William Godwin
Children
Great
Love
" The lessons of their early youth regulated the conduct of their riper years. "
William Godwin
Early
Lessons
Conduct
" In contemplation and reverie, one thought introduces another perpetually; and it is by similarity, or the hooking of one upon the other, that the process of thinking is carried on. "
William Godwin
Process
Other
Thought
" The four principal oral instructors to whom I feel my mind indebted for improvement were Joseph Fawcet, Thomas Holcroft, George Dyson, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "
William Godwin
Principal
Four
Feel
" With respect to my religious sentiments, I have the firmest assurance and tranquillity. I have faithfully endeavoured to improve the faculties and opportunities God has given me, and I am perfectly easy about the consequences. "
William Godwin
Opportunities
Me
God
" To diminish the cases in which the assistance of others is felt absolutely necessary is the only genuine road to independence. "
William Godwin
Road
Genuine
Independence
" Give energy, and mental exertion will always have attraction enough. "
William Godwin
Always
Will
Mental
" Let no man despise the oracles of books! A book is a dead man, a sort of mummy, embowelled and embalmed, but that once had flesh and motion and a boundless variety of determinations and actions. "
William Godwin
Book
Books
Dead
" What is high birth to him to whom high birth has never been the theme of his contemplation? What is a throne to him who has never dreamed of a throne? "
William Godwin
Never
Throne
Theme
" Since it is one of the great attributes of our species to be susceptible of improvement and capable of experiencing the most beneficial changes, for this reason what are vulgarly called 'venerable establishments' will often range themselves in opposition to the best interests of the community. "
William Godwin
Best
Improvement
Great
" Till 1782, I believed in the doctrine of Calvin: that is, that the majority of mankind were objects of divine condemnation and that their punishment would be everlasting. The 'Systeme de la Nature,' read about the beginning of that year, changed my opinion and made me a Deist. "
William Godwin
Beginning
Me
Nature
" In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question. "
William Godwin
Out
Understood
Question
" The true key of the universe is love. "
William Godwin
Universe
Key
Love
" There is reverence that we owe to everything in human shape. "
William Godwin
Owe
Human
Everything
" Superior virtue must be the fruit of superior intelligence. "
William Godwin
Virtue
Superior
Fruit
" I am an enemy to revolutions. I abhor, both from temper and from the clearest judgment I am able to form, all violent convulsions in the affairs of men. "
William Godwin
I Am
Temper
Men
" In the two novels I have published, it was my fortune at different times, and from different persons, to hear the most unqualified censure long before it was possible for me to hear the voice of the public. But my temper was not altered, nor my courage subdued. "
William Godwin
Possible
Long
Courage