Strange that men, from age to age, should consent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to the law! Oh, God! give me poverty! Shower upon me all the imaginary hardships of human life! I will receive them with all thankfulness. Turn me a prey to the wild beasts of the desert, so I be never again the victim of man, dressed in the gore-dripping robes of authority! Suffer me at least to call life, the pursuits of life, my own! Let me hold it at the mercy of the elements, of the hunger of the beasts, or the revenge of barbarians, but not of the cold-blooded prudence of monopolists and kings! . William Godwin
Some Similar Quotes
  1. We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules. - Alan Bennett

  2. A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window. - Gilles Deleuze

  3. If I ever form a clan, we'll be the anti-cheerleaders and walk under the bleacher forming mild acts of mayhem. - Laurie Halse Anderson

  4. Electricity is really just organized lightning - George Carlin

  5. A prison becomes a home when you have the key. - George Sterling

More Quotes By William Godwin
  1. He that loves reading has everything within his reach.

  2. It is absurd to expect the inclinations and wishes of two human beings to coincide, through any long period of time. To oblige them to act and live together is to subject them to some inevitable potion of thwarting, bickering, and unhappiness.

  3. If admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.

  4. It has an unhappy effect upon the human understanding and temper, for a man to be compelled in his gravest investigation of an argument, to consider, not what is true, but what is convenient.

  5. Strange that men, from age to age, should consent to hold their lives at the breath of another, merely that each in his turn may have a power of acting the tyrant according to the law! Oh, God! give me poverty! Shower upon me all...

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