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Ignorance is of a peculiar nature once dispelled, it is impossible to reestablish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant.
Thomas Paine
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Thomas Paine
Age: 72 †
Born: 1737
Born: January 29
Died: 1809
Died: June 8
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Entrepreneur
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Opinion Journalist
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Thetford
Norfolk
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Ignorance
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More quotes by Thomas Paine
Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.
Thomas Paine
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.
Thomas Paine
Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumable. It has of itself no rights they are altogether duties.
Thomas Paine
The Bill of Rights should contain the general principles of natural and civil liberty. It should be to a community what the eternal laws and obligations of morality are to the conscience. It should be unalterable by any human power.
Thomas Paine
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
Religion is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel.
Thomas Paine
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case.
Thomas Paine
Kill the king but spare the man.
Thomas Paine
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
Thomas Paine
All the religions known in the world are founded, so far as they relate to man or the unity of man, as being all of one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man may be supposed to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions.
Thomas Paine
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Thomas Paine
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
There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found inany other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them.
Thomas Paine
To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin.
Thomas Paine
Civilization, or that which is so called, has operated two ways to make one part of society more affluent and the other part more wretched than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.
Thomas Paine
To believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian faith at once little and ridiculous and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air.
Thomas Paine
Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.
Thomas Paine
Man did not enter society to be worse off, or to have fewer rights, but rather to have those rights better secured
Thomas Paine
Change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagances are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system. The foundation and superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you please, it continually sinks and ever will.
Thomas Paine
I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.
Thomas Paine
