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To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.

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
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Men
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More quotes by Thomas Paine

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The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the Church admits to be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology.
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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.
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If there was ever a just war since the world began, it is this in which America is now engaged.
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It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.
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A share in two revolutions is living to some purpose.
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For the fate of Charles the first, hath only made kings more subtle — not more just.
Thomas Paine
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Where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
Thomas Paine
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And as a man, who is attached to a prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one.
Thomas Paine
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The essential psychological requirement of a free society is the willingness on the part of the individual to accept responsibility for his life. - Edith Packer When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny.
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Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society.
Thomas Paine
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The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong.
Thomas Paine
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The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.
Thomas Paine
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From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom.
Thomas Paine
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Compassion, the fairest associate of the heart.
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The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
Thomas Paine
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Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.
Thomas Paine
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No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.
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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All Of Us Might Wish At Times That We Lived In A More Tranquil World....(yet) Our Times Are Challenging And Filled With Opportunity.
Thomas Paine
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Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
Thomas Paine