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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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Authority
Argue
Whose
Contempt
Dead
Consists
Philosophy
Holding
Administering
Humanity
Arguing
Endeavoring
Use
Scripture
Renounced
Reason
Atheist
Stubbornness
Men
Medicine
Convert

More quotes by Thomas Paine

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It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt
Thomas Paine
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The stupid texts of the Bible - from which, be the talents of the preacher what they may, only stupid sermons can be preached.
Thomas Paine
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Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men can forgive sins and you will have sins in abundance.
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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Therefore we say that a lying Spirit has been in the mouth of the writers of the books of the Bible.
Thomas Paine
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We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.
Thomas Paine
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The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.
Thomas Paine
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Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition of kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such governments and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a nation should apply itself to reform the system.
Thomas Paine
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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
Thomas Paine
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The intimacy which is contracted in infancy, and friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all others, the most lasting and unalterable.
Thomas Paine
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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
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The greatest remedy for anger is delay.
Thomas Paine
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Each government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue and ambition, as a means of heating the imagination of their respective nations, and incensing them to hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false system of government.
Thomas Paine
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Every Tory is a coward for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.
Thomas Paine
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For freemen like brothers agree With one spirit endured, they one friendship pursued, And their temple was Liberty Tree
Thomas Paine
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Government without a constitution, is a power without a right.
Thomas Paine
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The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun.
Thomas Paine
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Our greatest enemies, the ones we must fight most often, are within.
Thomas Paine
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Titles do not count with posterity.
Thomas Paine
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Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. ... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds.
Thomas Paine