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Life & Wisdom Quote by William Godwin

"Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason"

About this Quote

Godwin’s line is a cold splash of realism from a man often filed under “utopian.” He’s not romanticizing revolt; he’s diagnosing it. By insisting revolutions are “the produce of passion,” Godwin strips away the flattering story societies tell themselves afterward: that upheaval was a neat syllogism, a morally impeccable argument that simply had to be acted out in the streets. He knows better. Revolutions happen when lived experience becomes unbearable and emotion supplies what politics denies: urgency, solidarity, permission to break rules that suddenly feel illegitimate.

The phrasing is doing quiet work. “Produce” makes passion sound less like a noble flame and more like a mechanism: pressure in, explosion out. And “sober and tranquil reason” isn’t just “reason” in the abstract; it’s reason in its most domesticated form, the version comfortable enough to coexist with the status quo. Godwin is suggesting that calm rationality is structurally disadvantaged in moments of systemic crisis because it prefers deliberation, while oppression and scarcity deal in deadlines.

Context matters: Godwin is writing in the long afterglow and hangover of the French Revolution, when enlightened ideals had already proven they could be paired with terror, panic, and factional bloodletting. The subtext is a warning to reformers and philosophers: if you want to prevent violent rupture, you can’t rely on better arguments alone. You have to change conditions before anger becomes the only available engine. Passion isn’t the enemy of politics here; it’s the bill coming due.

Quote Details

TopicReason & Logic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Godwin, William. (2026, January 15). Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/revolutions-are-the-produce-of-passion-not-of-73639/

Chicago Style
Godwin, William. "Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/revolutions-are-the-produce-of-passion-not-of-73639/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/revolutions-are-the-produce-of-passion-not-of-73639/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.

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Revolutions: The Produce of Passion, Not Reason
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About the Author

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William Godwin (March 3, 1756 - April 7, 1836) was a Writer from England.

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