Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
THOMAS PAINEChristianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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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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We repose an unwise confidence in any government, or in any men, when we invest them officially with too much, or an unnecessary quantity of, discretionary power.
THOMAS PAINE -
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
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For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE -
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
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 -
Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
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 -
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
THOMAS PAINE -
All churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim, are simply human inventions. They use fear to enslave us. They are a monopoly for power and profit.
THOMAS PAINE -
There are two distinct classes of men – those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.
THOMAS PAINE -
Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.
THOMAS PAINE -
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.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
THOMAS PAINE -
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
THOMAS PAINE