Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
THOMAS PAINEGovernment is best which governs least.
More Thomas Paine Quotes
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When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it.
THOMAS PAINE -
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
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 -
It is easy to see that when republican virtue fails, slavery ensues.
THOMAS PAINE -
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
THOMAS PAINE -
When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect.
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 -
Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.
THOMAS PAINE -
You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.
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 -
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 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 -
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 -
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 -
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
THOMAS PAINE