It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
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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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
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Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
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An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
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Virtue is not hereditary.
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Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.
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I consider the war of America against Britain as the country’s war, the public’s war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.
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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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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.
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Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
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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.
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence?
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Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
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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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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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From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee; Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.
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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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For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
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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.
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.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
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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.
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In Deism our reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes.
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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.
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Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
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Character is much easier kept than recovered.
THOMAS PAINE