To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.
THOMAS PAINEFreedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
THOMAS PAINE -
Religion is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.
THOMAS PAINE -
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
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The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
THOMAS PAINE -
Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another. It is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man; it consequently follows that rights appertain to man in right of his existence, and must therefore be equal to every man.
THOMAS PAINE -
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
THOMAS PAINE -
He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
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When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to [profess] things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
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If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
THOMAS PAINE -
It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.
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A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal.
THOMAS PAINE -
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property… Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.
THOMAS PAINE -
Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
THOMAS PAINE