Quotes By William Godwin

Justice is the sum of all moral duty.

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.

Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

In cases where every thing is understood, and measured, and reduced to rule, love is out of the question.

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.

What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child?

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.

Let us not, in the eagerness of our haste to educate, forget all the ends of education.

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