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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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Conservative
Intolerable
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Anarchism
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Libertarian
More quotes by Thomas Paine
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas Paine
I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state up and help us lay your shoulders to the wheel better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.
Thomas Paine
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws.
Thomas Paine
It may perhaps be said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead but it signifies much to the living it either tortures their feelings or hardens their hearts.
Thomas Paine
Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Thomas Paine
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.
Thomas Paine
Kill the king but spare the man.
Thomas Paine
That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations is as shocking as it is true.
Thomas Paine
I know not whether taxes are raised to fight wars, or wars are fought in order to raise taxes.
Thomas Paine
Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.
Thomas Paine
There is something in meanness which excites a species of resentment that never subsides, and something in cruelty which stirs up the heart to the highest agony of human hatred.
Thomas Paine
Titles are like a magicians wand which circumscribe human facility and prevent us from living the lives of man.
Thomas Paine
Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America.
Thomas Paine
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.
Thomas Paine
What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
Thomas Paine
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
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
It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this end. It is the popery of government a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes.
Thomas Paine
What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.
Thomas Paine
Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance.
Thomas Paine
