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Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured
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
Society
Rather
Better
Men
Secured
Fewer
Enter
Worse
Rights
More quotes by Thomas Paine
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
Thomas Paine
We must be compelled to hold this doctrine to be false, and the old and new law called the Old and New Testament, to be impositions, fables and forgeries.
Thomas Paine
Natural rights are those which always appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the rights of others.
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
I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered and the easier repaired when disordered.
Thomas Paine
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
Thomas Paine
When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.
Thomas Paine
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
Thomas Paine
Small islands, not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for kingdoms to take under their care but there is something absurd, in supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island.
Thomas Paine
It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human invention it is only the application of them that is human.
Thomas Paine
How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
Thomas Paine
Human nature is not of itself vicious.
Thomas Paine
It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.
Thomas Paine
Commerce diminishes the spirit, both of patriotism and military defence.
Thomas Paine
To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.
Thomas Paine
We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest truest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
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 man may write himself out of reputation when nobody else can do it.
Thomas Paine
Character is much easier kept than recovered.
Thomas Paine
It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.
Thomas Paine