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He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.

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
Politician
Prosaist
Writer
Thetford
Norfolk
Government
Author
Whole
Motivation
Bleeds
Conflict
Contagion
Nation
Vein
Hell
Veins
Nations
Loose
War
Lets
Death
Opens

More quotes by Thomas Paine

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...It would be more consistent that we call [the Bible] the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
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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.
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Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.
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Death is not the monarch for the dead, but of the dying. The moment he obtains a conquest he loses a subject.
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A government of our own is our natural right and when a man seriously reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an interesting event to time and chance.
Thomas Paine
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Ah, reader, put thy trust in thy creator, and thou wilt be safe but if thou trustest to the book called the scriptures thou trustest to the rotten staff of fable and falsehood.
Thomas Paine
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If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can show any authority for doing it, nor can set any up.
Thomas Paine
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Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
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The more acquisitions the government makes abroad, the more taxes the people have to pay at home.
Thomas Paine
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What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue.
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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
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Men should not petition for rights, but take them
Thomas Paine
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We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Thomas Paine
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Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.
Thomas Paine
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How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
Thomas Paine
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Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
Thomas Paine
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Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.
Thomas Paine
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Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.
Thomas Paine
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Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches and tho' avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.
Thomas Paine
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Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind.
Thomas Paine