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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.

Thomas Paine

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
THOMAS PAINE

Angel Character God Man Reputation Thinking Woman
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

Easy Government Greatness Ignorance Influence Kind Man Reason
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
THOMAS PAINE

Appearance Freedom Liberty Nature Reason Rebel Truth
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

Body Government Man Right Togetherness Trust
The right of voting for representatives , is the primary right by which other rights are protected.
THOMAS PAINE

Protection Representation Right Vote
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
THOMAS PAINE

Ignorance Obedience Reason
Men should not petition for rights, but take them.
THOMAS PAINE

Action Man Right
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.
THOMAS PAINE

Administration Argument Atheist Authority Humanity Man Medicine Philosophy Reason Scripture
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
THOMAS PAINE

Brave Growth Man Reality Reflection Strength Trouble
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

Confidence Government Man Necessary Power
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

Constitution Exercise Government Illegal Limitation Logic Natural Power Result
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
THOMAS PAINE

Angry Principle Vice Virtue
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

Change Man Myself Opinion Present Right Slave Support
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
THOMAS PAINE

Children Day Myself Peace Trouble
The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.
THOMAS PAINE

Darkness Enlightenment Mindset
Christianity is the strangest religion ever set up, for it committed a murder upon Jesus in order to redeem mankind from the sin of eating an apple.
THOMAS PAINE

Commitment Eat Kind Man Murder People Religion Sin Strange

Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.

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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.

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