The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
THOMAS PAINEGovernment without a constitution, is a power without a right.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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The slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.
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Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
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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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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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It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
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It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.
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One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
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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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Virtue is not hereditary.
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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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For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
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It is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues.
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Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
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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.
THOMAS PAINE