Quote

A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.

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
Well
None
Ignorance
Nation
Uninstructed
Education
Monarchical
Support
Regulated
Nations
Permit
Government
Requires
Wells
Remain

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But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
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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.
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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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What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue.
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Thus commerce, though in itself a moral nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering the human mind....he trades with the same countries ...(that he) would have gone to war with.
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I disbelieve all holy men and holy books.
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...the individuals themselves, each in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
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But where, says some, is the King of America? I'll tell you. Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.
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The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists but of two points--his duty God, which every man must feel and, with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be done by.
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It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support.
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What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.
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Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.
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Prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same. Prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind.
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Wrong cannot have a legal descendant.
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To take away (voting) is to reduce a man to slavery.
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The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice.
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Every person of learning is finally his own teacher.
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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.
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How necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
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