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Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

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
Taxes
War
Wars
Carry
Raised

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And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.
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The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
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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.
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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.
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For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have the right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others forever, and tho' himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his cotemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.
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The idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries and as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man and as ridiculous as an hereditary poet-laureat.
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All men can understand what representation is and that it must necessarily include a variety of knowledge and talents.
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I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel.
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It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.
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The United States of America will sound as pompously in the world or in history as The Kingdom of Great Britain.
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...Thomas did not believe the resurrection [John 20:25], and, as they say, would not believe without having ocular and manual demonstration himself. So neither will I, and the reason is equally as good for me, and for every other person, as for Thomas.
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It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.
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Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
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Virtue is not hereditary.
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Kill the king but spare the man.
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The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
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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.
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Titles do not count with posterity.
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The Almighty implanted in us these inextinguishable feelings for good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of His image in our heart. They distinguish us from the herd of common animals.
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Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying
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