If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
THOMAS PAINEWhat we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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Government is best which governs least.
THOMAS PAINE -
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
THOMAS PAINE -
The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.
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 real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
THOMAS PAINE -
Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
THOMAS PAINE -
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
THOMAS PAINE -
Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
THOMAS PAINE -
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
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.
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 -
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
THOMAS PAINE -
Men should not petition for rights, but take them.
THOMAS PAINE -
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
THOMAS PAINE -
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.
THOMAS PAINE