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 PAINEA 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.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
-
-
When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect.
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 -
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
THOMAS PAINE -
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 -
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 -
I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.
THOMAS PAINE -
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
THOMAS PAINE -
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 -
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 PAINE -
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
THOMAS PAINE -
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.
THOMAS PAINE -
The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
THOMAS PAINE -
A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.
THOMAS PAINE -
If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised.
THOMAS PAINE -
It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
THOMAS PAINE