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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine
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Thomas Paine
Age: 72 †
Born: 1737
Born: January 29
Died: 1809
Died: June 8
Author
Entrepreneur
Journalist
Opinion Journalist
Philosopher
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Thetford
Norfolk
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Anarchism
Government
Necessary
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Liberty
Conservatism
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Intolerable
More quotes by Thomas Paine
Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters.
Thomas Paine
The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
Thomas Paine
But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
Thomas Paine
Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
Thomas Paine
And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.
Thomas Paine
Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
Thomas Paine
If anything had or could have a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust and calculated to support fraud and oppression.
Thomas Paine
In the progress of politics, as in the common occurrences of life, we are not only apt to forget the ground we have travelled over, but frequently neglect to gather up experiences as we go.
Thomas Paine
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.
Thomas Paine
Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! This is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!
Thomas Paine
He, who survives his reputation, lives out of despite himself, like a man listening to his own reproach.
Thomas Paine
The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries.
Thomas Paine
Government is a necessary evil
Thomas Paine
Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.
Thomas Paine
If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a legal descent.
Thomas Paine
I am sensible that he who means to do mankind a real service must set down with the determination of putting up, and bearing with all their faults, follies, prejudices and mistakes until he can convince them that he is right.
Thomas Paine
... a thirst for power is the natural disease of monarchy.
Thomas Paine
An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
Thomas Paine
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine
Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to bind me in all cases whatsoever to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?
Thomas Paine
