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" Perhaps the majority of human beings never think of standing by themselves, and choosing their own employments, till the sentence has been regularly promulgated to them, 'It is time for you to take care of yourself.' "

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" The Italian character in general is full of animation, and the natives enter into the interests and welfare of the stranger before them with a fervor that forbids all doubt of its sincerity and that is truly surprising. "

William Godwin

Animation

Sincerity

Doubt

" Law is made for man and not man for the law. Wherever we can be sure that the most valuable interests of a nation require that we should decide one way, that way we ought to decide. "

" 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

God

" Everything in the world is conducted by gradual process. This seems to be the great principle of harmony in the universe. "

" Sympathy is one of the principles most widely rooted in our nature: we rejoice to see ourselves reflected in another; and, perversely enough, we sometimes have a secret pleasure in seeing the sin which dwells in ourselves existing under a deformed and monstrous aspect in another. "

" How different a creature is man in society and man in solitude! "

" No one can display or can cultivate a fervent zeal in the mere repetition of a form. "

" In the graver and more sentimental communication of man and man, the head still bears the superior sway; in the unreserved intimacies of man and woman, the heart is ever uppermost. Feeling is the main thing, and judgment passes for little. "

" The most desirable state of mankind is that which maintains general security with the smallest encroachment upon individual independence. "

" In infamy, it is wisely provided that he who stands highest in the ranks of society has the heaviest load to sustain. "

" There is an indescribable something that ties us to life. For this purpose, it is not necessary that we should be happy. Though our life be almost without enjoyment, we do not consent to part with it. "

" There can be no passion, and by consequence no love, where there is not imagination. "

" It is questionless desirable in all ordinary cases, wherever positive law is established, to restrain ourselves within the letter of that law and to allow the criminal all the benefit, if benefit to him shall result, of any evasion or escape that the law shall afford him. "

" When the calamity we feared is already arrived, or when the expectation of it is so certain as to shut out hope, there seems to be a principle within us by which we look with misanthropic composure on the state to which we are reduced, and the heart sullenly contracts and accommodates itself to what it most abhorred. "

" There is nothing that human imagination can figure brilliant and enviable that human genius and skill do not aspire to realize. "

" The diligent scholar is he that loves himself, and desires to have reason to applaud and love himself. "

William Godwin

Desires

Reason

" Without imagination, there can be no genuine ardor in any pursuit or for any acquisition, and without imagination, there can be no genuine morality, no profound feeling of other men's sorrow, no ardent and persevering anxiety for their interests. "

" The execution of any thing considerable implies in the first place previous persevering meditation. "

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

" The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness. "

" In the summer of 1791, I gave up my concern in the 'New Annual Register,' the historical part of which I had written for seven years, and abdicated, I hope forever, the task of performing a literary labour, the nature of which should be dictated by anything but the promptings of my own mind. "

" Tenderness is the name for a lover's most exquisite sensation; protection is implied in his most generous and heart-thrilling impulse. "

" He that loves reading has everything within his reach. "

" I am most peremptorily of opinion against putting children extremely forward. If they desire it themselves, I would not balk them, for I love to attend to these unsophisticated indications. But otherwise, 'festina lente' is my maxim in education. "

" God is a being who is himself the cause of his own existence. His prerogative is to perceive before there was anything to be perceived. He is the creator of the universe; He operated upon nothing and turned it into something. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Great changes cannot take place in the minds of generations of men without a corresponding change in their external symbols. There must be a harmony between the inner and the outward condition of human beings, and the progress of the one must keep pace with the progress of the other. "

" I know not how it is: there are some businesses for which dullness seems to be a qualification. "