The pleasures of self-approbation, together with the right cultivation of all our pleasures, require individual independence. Without independence me… - William Godwin

It is false that kings are entitled to the eminence they obtain. They possess no intrinsic superiority over their subjects. The line of distinction that is drawn is the offspring of pretense, an indirect means employed for effecting certain purposes, and not the language of truth. It tramples upon the genuine nature of things, and depends for its support upon this argument, 'that, were it not for impositions of a similar nature, mankind would be miserable.'

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

To do what is forbidden always has its charms, because we have an indistinct apprehension of something arbitrary and tyrannical in the prohibition.