No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.
THOMAS PAINEOur greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
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The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
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A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
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Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
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A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
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If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.
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A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right.
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These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
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The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
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Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
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The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
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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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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.
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What is it the Bible teaches us? – raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? – to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
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He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
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If I do not believe as you believe, it proves that you do not believe as I believe, and that is all that it proves.
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One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
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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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It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
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I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.
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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.
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When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.
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The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.
THOMAS PAINE