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Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it.
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
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Thetford
Norfolk
Sense
Others
Must
People
Reasoned
Shocked
Ethics
Morality
More quotes by 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
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine
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
It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away.
Thomas Paine
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
Thomas Paine
The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax
Thomas Paine
For freemen like brothers agree With one spirit endured, they one friendship pursued, And their temple was Liberty Tree
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
...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.
Thomas Paine
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow.
Thomas Paine
Every religion is good that teaches man to be good and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.
Thomas Paine
The burden of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to pay the interest. If this quantity continue the same, the burden of the national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or less.
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
The mind, in discovering truths, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.
Thomas Paine
Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying
Thomas Paine
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
Thomas Paine
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Thomas Paine
Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
Thomas Paine
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
Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must undertake to support it.
Thomas Paine
