Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
William GodwinRead
My mind was bursting with depression and anguish. I muttered imprecations and murmuring as I passed along. I was full of loathing and abhorrence of life, and all that life carries in its train.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects deep feelings of despair and a strong dislike for life and its challenges.
In this quote, William Godwin expresses the overwhelming emotional pain he is experiencing, characterized by depression and a profound sense of discomfort with existence. His words convey a feeling of being burdened by negative thoughts and an intense loathing for life itself, suggesting a struggle with mental health and the weight of life's difficulties.
Themes
DepressionAnguishLoathingLifeSufferingPain
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about mental health awareness.
More from William Godwin
All quotes →It is one of the oldest maxims of moral prudence: Do not, by aspiring to what is impracticable, lose the opportunity of doing the good you can effect!
William GodwinRead
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.
William GodwinRead
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.
William GodwinRead
What are gold and jewels and precious utensils? Mere dross and dirt. The human face and the human heart, reciprocations of kindness and love, and all the nameless sympathies of our nature - these are the only objects worth being attached to.
William GodwinRead
Extraordinary circumstances often bring along with them extraordinary strength. No man knows, till the experiment, what he is capable of effecting.
William GodwinRead
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