William St. Clair

“For thirty years English literature clanks noisily with innumerable variations on the 'icy chains of custom,' and the 'chains off the mind' -- too often described as adamantine--become one of the clichés of the age. It was too easy to confuse the chains of causation with that other ancient metaphor, the 'Great Chain of Being,' which perceives the world as a hierarchy of all living things each linked into its proper place with man a rank below God, then the animals, fish, birds, and lesser organisms down to the pitiable insects and vegetables. This world view had traditionally been used to justify political and economic differences rather than to promote equality or liberty...”
― William St. Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys: A Biography of a Family

“[Edmund] Burke's predictions of the course of the French Revolution were to prove so accurate and have applied to so many other revolutions that they now constitute the general wisdom. It is however necessary to recall how shockingly cynical they seemed in 1790.”
― William St. Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys: A Biography of a Family