Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
THOMAS PAINEIt is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
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For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
THOMAS PAINE -
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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Freedom 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.
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He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
THOMAS PAINE -
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.
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 -
It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt.
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 -
Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
THOMAS PAINE -
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
THOMAS PAINE -
There are two distinct classes of men – those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.
THOMAS PAINE -
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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To take away voting is to reduce a man to slavery.
THOMAS PAINE -
Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy.
THOMAS PAINE






