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 PAINECharacter is much easier kept than recovered.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.
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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.
THOMAS PAINE -
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
THOMAS PAINE -
It is important that we should never lose sight of this distinction. We must not confuse the peoples with their governments.
THOMAS PAINE -
Virtue is not hereditary.
THOMAS PAINE -
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
THOMAS PAINE -
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 PAINE -
These are the times that try men’s souls.
THOMAS PAINE -
There are two distinct classes of men – those who pay taxes and those who receive and live upon taxes.
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 -
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
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.
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 -
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
THOMAS PAINE -
It is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues.
THOMAS PAINE